If you pass, know that you will have no say 
about what happens. 

Some of our people will hate you as they hate themselves. 
You must create a life 
without giving them all your life’s attention. 

Some people will delight in destroying you. 
Some will strike you. Some will choose 
others as their favorites. 

Some have been waiting for you for generations; 
circling, like hunters, round your little heart. 
Of course they don’t know you.

This truth will set you free, 
eventually. But only after you’ve forgotten this. 

You haven’t learnt to fly yet, have you? 

Somebody will love you.
Somebody will hurt you too, but you know that already.

We offer you little in the way of certainty;
just that the country you live in will not always be that country.

There is a lot you’ll need to suffer.
Remember: help is a howl and an imperative.
Nothing to be ashamed of.

One way or another, shame 
can teach you what nothing else can teach you. 

One way or another. 

Your body is an event
and you’ll spend decades unpacking what’s happened. 

Here are some things we cannot guarantee you:
guarantees, or history’s purity.

Here is what we can:
A platform on which your past can make or break
depending on how power is conceived. 

There is no such thing as the past. 
Just stories of the past poorly re-enacted.

And nobody knows where the past begins —
in the beginning it was all a dream, not a story. 

Remember: you must believe
some of this.

Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away.Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!” “Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”