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don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem, baby girl
[lauren hill]
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it's inhuman to be so cold.
[the prestige]
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I've noticed that people will tell you all kinds of things about yourself. They will say them at you, anyway, while checking their voicemail or driving you to the bank. In the end, what they're really doing is telling you about themselves, what they think it means to be alive, what they believe it is to be human, but mostly what it is they are angry about.
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You are unintelligent, naive, they will say, or you are a waste of my time, or I knew someone once who could do it better than you. They will move against you, use your trust to their advantage, use your vulnerability to make themselves look fierce. They will mow you down with AK-47s while you walk through the woods with a fishing pole. They will tell you what your dreams are and then laugh at them. You will know them by their wide mouths, the way their eyes reflect flourescent light.
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They will walk away from you. You will offer them things that you know they need, things that you hear them asking for when they stop talking. You will look up one day and see them watching you, one hand pressed absentmindedly to their chest as if blocking a wound, and in that moment you will hear their pleas as though they spoke them directly in your ear. But they can only communicate their pain when they think no one is watching. It doesn't matter how much light you reflect; they will leave you just to prove that they can still walk. They will take a gift and disappear as though it were spoils and they, some kind of victor.
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This is all clear, and awful, but not a good enough reason to do what you feel like doing. We underestimate our hearts. It's not possible to stop loving them. It's not possible to turn so that all we have are backs and heels. There is a deeper truth that we are all accountable to, all accountable for. Let them take; the secret is that you have more than you know what to do with. Let them walk away, knowing that they do so only because you are so irresistably drawing them in. Give until they cannot carry it all.
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You are renewed every day. The crown of creation. Never release them or forsake them; take them by the elbows and pull up, again and again, until one day you wake up and you are somewhere else entirely.
