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— Ashleigh Catibog-Abraham, There’s Nothing Left to Save

It may, of course, be the other way around: Columbus was discovered by what he found.

This life startles you with its foreign tongue of traumas and kisses, its vulnerable eyes staring into yours for mercy as it lies down beside you, tries to say — although it doesn’t know your language — that it’s okay how it turned out, that it’s still here, and despite its wish to be lived, it’s not going anywhere.

A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some street corner while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas, pink petals that have never felt loneliness, no matter how slowly they fell.

— Megan Fernandes, Do you sell dignity here?