Grip Kennedy Ryan Quotes

Still?” she asks with a watery smile. “Yeah.” Always. Evermore. Even after. “Still.

And when the years have passed, and we have watched a thousand sunsets, and we are bent, our bodies crooked with age ask me again. In the twilight, in the shadow of the life we have shared, ask me if I love you, and my heart will answer before my lips can part. My love, my life, my heart never left your hands. Always, evermore, even after. Still.

I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.

Ask me when your belly is full like the moon, and our love has stretched your body with my child, leaving your skin, once flawless, now silvered, traced, scarred, I will worship you. My eyes will never stray. My heart will never wander, gladly leashed to you all my days. I am fixed on you.

Don’t you feel how connected we are?” I ask. “If I break your heart, I break mine.” A sweet smile spreads over her lips and she nods.

Dwell in possibility.

I love your body because it has you in it.

Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation’s out of breath. We ain’t running no more.

We both gave each other space to be misunderstood, because we really wanted to understand.

We just tiptoe around things, afraid we’ll offend or look ignorant, be misunderstood. Honesty is a risk few are willing to take.

There’s something helpless about truly being in love, the kind of love they write songs about, that inspires poetry and launches ships and wreaks havoc. It leaves you slightly off balance, controlling when you mean to cherish, smothering when you mean to hold close.

He’s dictating my heartbeat, governing my pulse, holding my next breath cupped in his hands.

However imperfect she appears to some, she is ours, and we already love her deeply and will treasure any time we have with her.

And it still isn’t enough. Anything that ended would never be enough for a love like ours. A love like ours is only satisfied by forever.

But we are sometimes in the most danger when we let our guards down, when we let peace deceive us and trick us into forgetting.

I come here with my heart bleeding on my sleeve, and it's still not enough for him. He needs me to cut it out and hand it to him in chunks of flesh and blood.

I’ll never forget this moment when, through the abject fear and despair and exhaustion saturating her eyes, I glimpse her trust in me. It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received.

So what color am I then?” I ask before thinking better of it. He’ll probably just say I’m white, obviously. “What color are you?” he repeats, his eyes never leaving my face. “You, Bristol, are a freaking prism.

When I thought of my husband, I didn’t dream in color, I dreamt in character.

We splinter into a thousand pieces in her kitchen, becoming more together than we were apart. More than we were alone. With whispered promises and words of love, we exchange hearts.

She’s something rare—smart, classy, gorgeous, funny, opinionated, and under it all, where she tries to hide it, kind. And burrowed beneath all of that, vulnerable. She isn’t the kind of girl you mess over.

But it’s such a rich white,” I say, forcing my lips to stay curved. “Well, this is Tribeca,” Grip deadpans. “There’s bound to be a lot of rich whites.

Dude had serious game.” Grip laughs. “No one writes about love and sex and passion like Neruda.

I will kiss him a million times in our life together and never tire of it. My lips will always cling, curious and searching. His touch is an endless thrill.

He studies me a moment longer, and the intimacy and openness are almost too much, but I force myself not to look away. I’ve never been more vulnerable to anyone, and I’ve never trusted anyone else the way I trust Grip— with my life, with my heart.

Every time I’m near her I want to pour accelerant all over my anger so it burns us both to ash.

Art, specifically music, is a living thing,” he says. “It isn’t just absorbed by the people who hear it, but it absorbs them.

We feel the things we need to know instead of say them. With my chest pressed to his back, forgiveness, love, understanding, and tenderness transfer noiselessly between the layers of our clothes, an emotional osmosis through blood and bone, through hurt and fear.

I warned you that I'm not like other girls. I don't have those limits. I'd do anything for you. It sounds romantic until it crosses your lines, huh? Until it goes too far.

She looks like me,” he says. “I told you we’re twins. Lemme check the Cloud for a picture.” Did

When we are alone, you and I, through years, through pain, my heart will answer again and again, still.

When other people are as outraged and as curious about those problems as black people are,” he says. “Then maybe we can solve them together.

I bet your leg has gone to sleep.” “Not my third leg.

Grief handed me a heart of iron, and I rusted it with my tears, a muscle not made of flesh, not pumping blood.

Marlon James, you better fix her.” It takes the rest of the day to reprogram Nina...

I look at her, cataloging her features one by one and realizing the most fascinating thing about this girl isn’t visible to the naked eye.

In the words of that great comedic philosopher Kevin Hart, “We gon’ learn today!

What color are you?” he repeats, his eyes never leaving my face. “You, Bristol, are a freaking prism.

But if you don’t ride me hard enough, I’m flipping you over and tearing that ass up. Got it?” “That sounds fair.” I nod frantically, no breath left for banter. I’m just ready to impale myself on him.

If you’ve heard shots as many times as we have, if you live with it, you know the sound a gun makes when it’s fired is a moan. The moan of a mother, a father, a daughter, or son losing someone they love.

Electric current spears me down the middle, landing in my core. He sucks all the oxygen from the room, and my lungs desperately push breath from my chest. He studies me under hooded lids, knowing exactly what he’s doing to me.

Oh, I want you.” Lust roughens his voice. Love makes it soft. His gaze drops, a lazy, heated sweep over my body, a sweet searing of my skin. The look is as heavy as a stroking hand, but so gentle that I barely feel its tantalizing weight.

My waters rise, and like a river bursting free of its banks, I overflow.

With whispered promises and words of love, we exchange hearts.

Life is the grand equalizer. It has a way of stripping those privileges, rendering them inconsequential.

I’m so ready, Bristol could breathe on me and I’d probably come all over her.

We don’t “emancipate” where I come from. Nah. We keep shit simple and just never come home.

What should be foreign feels familiar.

I guess to me, we have enough that divides us and makes us misunderstand each other. Do we really need one more thing we can’t agree on?

You’re not asking the wrong question. Is it the most important question, though?

Let’s get some outrage over people of color getting longer sentences for the same crimes other people commit.

I don’t know if it’s mine or if it’s hers, but this moment, this perfect glass-blown moment where our bodies unite and our souls intersect, this moment belongs to us.

I have no pride when it comes to you, to this. I’ll chase you anywhere.

What if he decides someday the one thing he really wants, really needs is the one thing I can never be?

The music is sensuous and whispers sex before the singer delivers the first lyric. “Prince?” I ask, surprised. I recognize the iconic voice, but not the song. “What is this?” “Adore.

Emotion tells you about love, but hard times prove it. How can you know something is great unless it’s tested? Until then, it’s just an assumption. It’s a question, but life has a way of answering.

I withhold nothing from him. Not my body—he can have it any way he wants it. Not my heart—flung open like a door for him to walk through. Not my soul—twisting around his every time he hammers up into me, possessing me from the inside out.

I will worship you,” I remind her, taking her hand and tracing the letters tattooed beneath her wedding band, linking our fingers, showing her the ink beneath mine. “Still?” she asks with a watery smile. “Yeah.” Always. Evermore. Even after. “Still.

But I want to hear the same dismay and curiosity,” he continues, his smile leveling out. “About the issues that are actually eroding our communities. Let’s ask why black men are six percent of the general population and nearly forty percent of the prison population.

You ask me today if I love you, if I take you as my own to have and to hold, and my heart replies yes. Always, evermore, even after. Still. Not just today before a crowd, but when we are alone, you and I, through years, through pain, My heart will answer again and again, still.

There are too few perfect moments in this life. Far too few of us get them, but I am privileged to have this one with this man. When he empties his chest of his heart and empties his body of his soul for me under a starry sky on a Ferris wheel. And I know. In this moment, I know that I’m lost to him. It has been a matter of days. It has been a string of moments. It has not been long enough to tell him, but in my heart, I know I am lost.

Thank you, Bris. God, I’ve missed you so much. I love you,” he whispers over my lips, sending his tongue in to taste me. “I can’t stop touching you. I thought I might lose . . .” His voice breaks. He buries his head in my neck, and I feel his tears mingling with the sweat sheening my body. He reaches up, looking at me with wet eyes, and brushes away the tears I didn’t realize were streaming over my cheeks, too. “We made it.” He smiles at me, eyes tender. “I told you we could survive anything together.” He never doubted us. When I wasn’t sure I could make it, when I couldn’t find my way out of the darkness entombing me, he came for me. “Don’t ever tell me not to save you,” I say, tears rolling between my naked breasts and over the gold that binds our hearts together. “You saved me, Grip. You came for me.

He looked at me that day the way he’s looking at me now, as if I were some new mystery he wanted to lose himself in solving.

How he got close enough to break my heart so quickly, I'm not sure, but I know it is not whole. Maybe I fell for the possibility of him. The idea that there was actually someone out there who saw me, flaws and all, and would accept me. "Got me".

Things changed for me, Grip, she whispers. I love you. I told you not to do that, Qwest. You know I don't feel that way. You also know the heart doesn't always do what we tell it to.

Black skinny jeans cling to long, lean legs that start at Monday and stretch all the way through next week.

I know what he sees and probably what he thinks. Big black dude, arms splashed with tats, “First Weed. Then Coffee” T-shirt. He’s probably ready to piss himself. He’s like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid all grown up but still wimpy. I could squash him with my eyelashes.

But Bristol is all kinds of things I could not have anticipated or prepared for. Her curiosity, her authenticity, and her honesty hook something in me and draw me closer.

Oh, no. By no means.” Grip leans back, considering me from under heavy eyelids. “I don’t care what color a girl is. I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue.

Ezra’s been a mentor of sorts to me over the years.

And the rack. The leather lovingly cups the just-right handful of her breasts. Narrow waist and nice ass. She’s not as thick as the chicks I usually pull, but my eyes involuntarily scroll back up her slim curves, seeking the face that goes with this body.

I never understood the big deal with high cheekbones. I mean, they’re cheekbones, not tits. You can’t motorboat cheekbones, but now I get it. Her face makes me get it.

I falter, my throat closing around the secrets, around the dark memories. My body is reluctant to release them, but I have to. I’m not holding onto this trauma. It’s holding onto me. It has me in a vise grip. I have to get it out to move on.

I may not want a relationship, but I’m not blind or dead south of the waist. My heart, though, last time I checked, was north of my belt. I don’t let anyone near that thing.

He’s lightning in a beautiful bottle, just waiting to strike. A pending storm. He’s hypnotizing. Intoxicating. I’m as buzzed off him as I am off my Grey Goose.

A scarlet sash cords her waist, and her bright red heels scream “fuck me.” But it’s Bristol, so they could whisper it, and I’d still hear.

We can’t give up on each other.

Again, my heart is a scale out of balance, with my end taking all the weight.

If the one they offer you isn’t enough, make your own.

The rest of the night, we stayed with the group, but a quiet, untraceable intimacy linked us. We played silly games and won stupid prizes. She won me a black plastic watch. I won her a whistle. We got lost together in the fun house, and I pressed her against a wavy mirror. Even distorted, our shapes were perfect together.

Her kiss woos me in the water. Her fingers on my skin are poetry. Her lips, prose. The rhythm of her heart against mine, iambic. Every touch, eloquence.

The inches between our lips disappear. At the first brush of his mouth on mine, I know this kiss will never end. It will live on in my memory for the rest of my life.

Like a peacock, spread yourself for me. Awe me with your plumage. We’re birds of a feather, you and I. I hear your cry, do you hear mine? A mating call before you fall, your holla never heard. My moaning bird, One by one, I’ll count your feathers. Let me try to make it better. Can I kiss your scars? I want to give you what you’re needing Use my heart to staunch the bleeding And for your broken wing, my arms will be the sling Where you go, I go, even due south Borrow my breath, mouth to mouth Resuscitation A flock to ourselves, a murmuration Just us two in our love nest Hide in my love, take your rest Till you’re ready to fly again Fly into my arms, A safe arrival, a sure survival, a glorious revival Then we’ll leave this nest together Two birds, we’ll soar above the past behind us A path we can’t un-fly A death we can’t un-die But we ain’t at death’s door Nah, it’s time to leave. Our hearts can do the impossible Do you believe? Then fly, my love! Soar! My pretty bird, fly with me and cry no more.

Unreasonable, undeniable peace. I grip her tightly like my lungs grip air, because for the first time since my mother called, I can finally breathe.

At the top of the world, so close we could almost touch the sky and with only the stars watching, I found out what a kiss should be.

That guard I forgot about and dropped all week falls back into place over my heart just in time. “We don’t cry in front of strangers.

I need you. You are as fundamental as the breath in my lungs; as much a part of me as the blood flowing through my body. To let you go would be to let go of life, and that is how long you'll have me. You'll have me for a lifetime.

I need you. You are as fundamental as the breath in my lungs; as much a part of me as the blood flowing through my body. To let you go would be to let of of life, and that is how long you'll have me. You'll have me for a lifetime.

In conversations like these, before we say our words, they’re ammunition. After we’ve said them, they’re smoking bullets. There seems to be no middle ground and too little common ground for dialogue to be productive. We just tiptoe around things, afraid we’ll offend or look ignorant, be misunderstood. Honesty is a risk few are willing to take.

No, she isn’t the kind of girl you mess over. A guy needs to be very sure he wants her, and just her, before he makes a move. Yeah. A guy would have to be very sure.

I learned early on that people aren’t careful with your emotions. They’re too self-involved to consider how their actions affect others.

Now, I fear that I care too much about people who don’t give a damn.

You can’t build plans around something that hasn’t happened yet. Idiot, what do you think dreams are if not plans we make based on things that haven’t happened yet?

his lips start soft, brushing mine like wings in sweet sweeps, coaxing me open and delving into me.

She doesn't deserve you, she whispers. But she has me.

The fuck!” I explode, gripping my head with both hands. “Who the hell are you giving a lap dance?” “Your friend, Luke. Now if you’ll excuse me.

It’s not bad that you ask why we call each other that,

There’s just bigger issues that actually affect our lives, our futures, our children, and that’s what we want to talk about.

My pretty bird, fly with me and cry no more.

Just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t mean you can objectify me.