I’m overwhelmed. My biggest downfall is my brightest blessing, I feel too much, all the time. Ya Allah, if it’ll keep my heart soft, break my heart every day.

It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.

Make peace with your body, it's not manmade, there are no flaws, there are no mistakes.

Why do you live in your body like you will be given another? As if it were temporary. You starve it, you let anyone touch it, you berate it. Tell it that it should be completely different. You tug at your soft flesh, wish it thinner, wish it gone. You fall in love with those who praise the way it sighs under their hands, but who praises the way it holds up your weight, even when you are falling apart?

At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.

I think in Somali, I cuss in Somali, when I'm afraid I reach for somali and this language is very rich, very filling. It's an unflinching language; the crudest most terrible things sound perfectly normal in Somali.

I belong deeply to myself.