Kacen Callender Quotes

I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t fucking want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.

It's easier, sometimes, to love when you know it's a love you can't have.

It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance.

But, just because we loved each other, doesn't mean we were meant to be together. And just because you loved one, doesn't mean you can't love another.

Even if a creator made a character to be straight, they put those characters out into the world, right? So those characters are mine now. And I say that Steve and Bucky are gay as hell.

It can be easier, sometimes, to choose to love someone you know won't return your feelings. At least you know how that will end. It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It's the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest.

I see at least one thing a day that makes me wonder if the straight people are all right.

Do you ever feel like you’re only ever watching? I ask Declan. Never really participating. Never really doing. Just always watching.

No one else gets to define who I am. Only me.

It’s almost like I was looking for the pain and the hurt, because it was easier to live with the idea that, even though I want love, I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be loved.

What does it feel like, to love someone so much that you’re willing to publicly bare your heart and soul with a black Sharpie?

For trans and nonbinary youth: You're beautiful. You're important. You're valid. You're perfect.

I look at the moon, and I can’t help but think of everyone else on the planet who’s looking up at it, too, and how alone I am, even though we’re all here on the same Earth. I think about the fact that we should all be connected, but we’re not. We’re too preoccupied trying to hurt each other. It makes me think of how hypocritical I can be, and the mistakes I’ve made, and the ways I’ve hurt people, too.

It's easier, I think, to love someone you know won't love you - to chase them, knowing they won't feel the same way - than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all

secrets are best kept hidden, because sometimes people aren’t ready to hear the truth. And that’s okay, King, he said, because you don’t need other people to know the truth also. Just as long as you got that truth in you.

It could've been easy to say I was hurt because I'm trans, because someone singled me out for my identity, but there's something weird about that - something off, about suggesting that my identity is the thing that brought me any sort of pain. It's the opposite. Being trans brings me love. It brings me happiness. It gives me power.

Yeah. I don’t know, I always feel like I can’t figure out how to just stop watching and actually join.

I didn't even know so much water could be inside a person- like he was hiding an entire ocean beneath his skin.

The longer I sit here and sketch, the better my art becomes; and it helps to look at the people around me, instead of seeing who I assume them to be.

Just because you don’t understand my identity, doesn’t mean I’m not real. That I don’t exist.

I want to be in love. I’ve never, you know—felt the kind of passion great artists talk about. I want that. I want to feel that level of intensity. Not everyone wants love. I get that, you know? But me—I want to fall in love and be broken up with and get pissed and grieve and fall in love all over again. I’ve never felt any of that. I’ve just been doing the same shit. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.

You’re not your grades. You’re not your test scores or your college application or even your portfolio.

Maybe the ending isn't even really the point. Just as long as there was a happy somewhere along the way.

I want to see what a new self-portrait would look like, after I've stood up for myself.

I mean, I WANT to be in love. That’s something I’ve always wanted to feel. What’s it like, to be in love and have that other person love you, too? Is it another level of friendship? Another level of trust, vulnerability, always telling that person your thoughts and feelings, sharing every little thing with them so that you’re so in sync that it’s like you’re one person? Is it like every time you see them, your heart goes wild, and you can’t think because you’re so effing happy? Is it like whenever they’re away, you feel like you’re missing a piece of yourself? Does knowing someone loves you fill you with confidence, because you know you’re the type of person who deserves love? And what’s it like to break up with someone you love? What’s it like to decide to try again, and let yourself fall in love with someone else? To decide to take that chance you might get hurt, but still want to try? I don’t know. But I want to.

The idea of not being alone -- of having someone who sees me, same way I see the things that no one else can see, makes me feel like I'm real. Like I deserve to exist on this planet alongside everyone else. That I get to be here because there's someone else who wants me here too.

It’s like every identity I have . . . the more different I am from everyone else . . . the less interested people are. The less . . . lovable I feel, I guess. The love interests in books, or in movies or TV shows, are always white, cis, straight, blond hair, blue eyes. Chris Evans, Jennifer Lawrence. It becomes a little hard, I guess, to convince myself I deserve the kind of love you see on movie screens.

I’m always amazed by the depths of your bullshit.

When someone hurts me, I either obsess over how to convince them I’m worthy of their love or obsess over how to destroy them.

Burst and swirl and fly around, their wings shining with all the colors of the universe.

What’re you afraid of? Everything. I’m scared I’m not living my life to my full potential. I’m scared I’m wasting my life when I’m meant to be doing something else, something more . . .

The straights say that we’ve got an agenda to turn people gay,” Marisol says, “but then will try to force toddlers on each other and say it’s so cute and they’re destined to get married. Seriously.

Second of all,” he says, “it doesn’t matter what they think. It only matters what you think. Do you think you’re worthy of respect and love?” My mouth is still open, but now, no sound comes out. “I think you are,” he tells me, still watching me—totally unashamed to be staring.

If the world was perfect, maybe we wouldn’t need labels. But the world isn’t perfect, and labels can really be a source of pride—especially when we’ve got to deal with so much crap. I’m really freaking proud to be a lesbian.

I’m not pretending to be a boy. Just because you haven’t evolved to realize gender identity doesn’t equal biology, doesn’t mean you get to say who I am and who I’m not. You don’t have that power. Only I have the power to say who I am.

I feel like I’ve been physically attacked. Like someone took control of who I am. Took that control away from me.

It takes time. Grief takes a lot of forms, and it stays with you until the end of your days. Isn't that right?

It feels good to me, to know I’m not alone. That someone else has felt the same way I’ve felt, experienced the same things I’ve experienced. It’s validating.

What’s it like, to be in love and have that other person love you, too? Is it another level of friendship? Another level of trust, vulnerability, always telling that person your thoughts and feelings, sharing every little thing with them so that you’re so in sync that it’s like you’re one person? Is it like every time you see them, your heart goes wild, and you can’t think because you’re so effing happy? Is it like whenever they’re away, you feel like you’re missing a piece of yourself? Does knowing someone loves you fill you with confidence, because you know you’re the type of person who deserves love?

But it took me a little longer to figure out that just because I love her, doesn't mean it's a good kind of love. It can be easier, sometimes, to choose to love someone you know won't return your feelings. At least you know how that will end. It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It's the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest" -Dad

A lot of people who use they/them pronouns don’t feel like they’re a boy or a girl, which is something that could maybe, possibly, describe that niggling feeling—that being seen as a girl definitely isn’t right, but being seen as a guy isn’t totally right, either.

You don't need to die for each other to make this exciting. Just the fact that you're here, together--that's epic enough.

You don't need to die for each other to make this exciting. Just the fact that you're here, together--that's epic enough.

It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It's the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest.

Now that I know he’s Ezra’s new maybe-special friend, I pay a little more attention to him than I would have before. He kind of reminds me of a golden retriever, with his floppy blond hair and blue eyes. The first time I saw him in acrylics class, I kind of immediately hated the guy. He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks, a little like the way people obsess over men like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pine and all the other famous Chrises, plus Ryan Gosling, claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and why they don’t love any people of color the same way.

I used to hope that he’d decide to change his mind—that he could accept me, because I was his son. And then I’d laugh at myself. Like, how fucking arrogant is that? Expecting my dad to love me more than he loves God.

He’s created his bubble of privilege, where no one is allowed but people like him, and because of that he doesn’t understand the world around him—doesn’t want to understand the world around him, because it’s too scary for him, too challenging. I start to feel a little sorry

But it was a tough lesson to learn, realizing that I couldn't wait for her to decide she would love me again. It wasn't healthy. If I fall in love again, it'll be with a woman who loves me also - not someone who I have to convince to love me. It's easier, I think, to love someone you know won't love you - to chase them, knowing they won't feel the same way - than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all" -Dad

The question of if I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing in this lifetime. The thought sends a spike of fear through me.

Live. Live them for the people who didn't get to enjoy being a teenager. For the people who never lived past being a teenager.

It's hot as hell—the kind of heat that sticks to your skin, your hair, your freaking eyeballs.

My memories are peppered with little pieces of evidence that I’d always been trans, even before I knew what trans was.

I want to be in love. I've never, you know- felt the kind of passion great artists talk about. I want that. I want to feel that level of intensity.

I never hated you. I could never hate you.

The way we lived then, that's how we thought we would live forever. We not for one second thought everything could change in the amount of time it takes for a single heart to stop beating.

but if I’m honest with myself, I can feel jealousy sprouting in my chest. What does it feel like, to love someone so much that you’re willing to publicly bare your heart and soul with a black Sharpie? What is it like to even love someone at all?

Just from listening to what the other children at school say, I know that not many mothers like Miss Joe. They say she’s a woman that isn’t really a woman at all, but is a snake in disguise. When her red pickup truck breaks down, she doesn’t have a man to call, so she fixes it herself. When she’s thirsty or hungry, she cooks for herself and only herself, not for a husband asking for this and that. She’s like the slaves back in the day who weren’t really slaves at all because they’d taken their freedom, and lived in their own houses, and owned their own clothes, and ate their own food. People didn’t like seeing slaves like that, and people don’t like seeing a woman like that now either.

Okay, enough self-pity for the day. Maybe one day I’ll actually go through and click send on every single one of these messages just to flood your inbox. But until then . . . Your son, Felix

I don’t know, not only did a lightbulb go off in me, but the sun itself came out from behind these eternal clouds, and everything inside me blazed with the realization: I’m a guy. I’m a freaking guy.

I know that, as a trans person of color, my life expectancy is in my early thirties, just because of the sort of violence people like me face every day.

We never talk about it. How he doesn’t like saying the name Felix out loud. How he’ll always slip up and use the wrong pronouns, and not bother to correct himself.

I honestly don’t care that much about labels. I mean, I know they’re important to a lot of people, and I can see why—I’m not knocking them. It’s just . . . I kind of wish we could exist without having to worry about putting ourselves into categories

It could've been easy to say I was hurt because I’m trans, because someone singled me out for my identity, but there’s something weird about that—something off, about suggesting that my identity is the thing that brought me any sort of pain. It’s the opposite. Being trans brings me love. It brings me happiness. It gives me power

It had never really crossed my mind I guess to think about doing self portraits. They've always felt a little narcissistic to me and I'm not exactly the guy who wants to, or is even able to, stare at myself all day. I never take selifes and I barely like glancing at myself in mirrors. Dysphoria has played a huge part in that. It's what Dr. Rodriquez first called the feeling I have when I see myself and I know I don't look the way I'm supposed to. The discomfort I used to have in seeing my hair long and a chest that wasn't flat. I've been lucky enough to see most of the changes I want to see, but I'm still the shortest guy of all my classmates and sometimes I can feel strangers' stares as they watch me, questioning my gender. "Self-portraits are empowering," Jill says. "They force you to see yourself in a way that's different than just looking in a mirror or snapping a picture on your phone. Painting a self-portrait makes you recognize and accept yourself, both on the outside and within. Your beauty, your intricacies, even your flaws. It isn't easy by any means," she tells me then shrugs. "But anything that reveals you, the real you, isn't easy.

I’ve never been afraid to speak my mind before in my life. That’s what feels worse than anything else. Silencing myself, when I’ve so often fought to be heard against people like Missus Wilhelmina and Anise Fowler and her hyenas. They aren’t telling me to shut up now. I’m telling myself. I’m a traitor to my own voice.

There’s much more in this life to fear than just spirits, and if I let fear rule my every move, I will become nothing more than a little ghost child myself. I want to be brave. I want to live the life I was given. So what if the spirits hear us call their names? Let them hear it.

I just want to prove that I'm good enough, too. That I deserve it. It's kind of like proving that–I don't know, proves I deserve respect and love, too, even if no one else agrees with me. Even if no one else believes it.

Austin smiles at me while Leah argues with Hazel. Now that I know he’s Ezra’s new maybe-special friend, I pay a little more attention to him than I would have before. He kind of reminds me of a golden retriever, with his floppy blond hair and blue eyes. The first time I saw him in acrylics class, I kind of immediately hated the guy. He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks, a little like the way people obsess over men like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pine and all the other famous Chrises, plus Ryan Gosling, claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and why they don’t love any people of color the same way. I love that I have brown skin. I love that I’m queer, and that I’m trans. But sometimes, I can’t help but think how much easier my life would be if I was someone like Austin.

I told my dad that I felt like Harry Potter, sleeping in the cupboard under the staircase. I was just joking, but I felt bad the second I said it. My dad’s really effing trying, I know that he is—and complaining about my new room, when he’s been working his ass off for me and my school, wasn’t exactly my shining moment.

He takes my hand, fingers brushing together, like he never wants to let go, and I don’t want him to, either.

I probably always will love her,” he’d said. “But it was a tough lesson to learn, realizing that I couldn’t wait for her to decide she would love me again. It wasn’t healthy. If I fall in love again, it’ll be with a woman who loves me also—not someone who I have to convince to love me. It’s easier, I think, to love someone you know won’t love you—to chase them, knowing they won’t feel the same way—than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all.

But something like this--I want to, no, need to put the photo out into the world, into the universe, as if the second that pictures exists somewhere besides my phone is the moment I'll start to exist, too.

My dad won't look at me. I don't know if he even knows how to look at me. He can't see me for who I really am--only who he wants me to be.

How do we find and cultivate pride for each other and ourselves when we're in a world that seems like it doesn't want us to exist?

I thought the lights were the ghosts of those slaves coming for me because they were jealous that I'd been born free

That feeling when you read the last line of a book that you love? I can't think of a lonelier feeling in the world. It's like that story's characters became your friends, the best friends you could ever ask for, because you were living in their heads and understood them and they understood you and you shared all these experiences and maybe even fell in love, and you felt like you really blonged somewhere, just for one second, just this once. And then the book ends, and you remember - oh, yeah. None of it was real.

But we all make mistakes, right? It's just easier to say that we are the good people and other people are the bad people, when in reality, we've all done something harmful, and other people are saying they're the good people, and we're the bad people, and cycle just goes on like that forever and ever.

I wonder what's going on in white people's heads. Why don't so many white people care about race? Is it because they're ashamed? They know they benefit from white privilege, but they don't talk about the horrible things their ancestors did. Whenever I read a book with a white main character, written by a white person, they never even consider the ways that their world has been shaped by the racism they're still benefiting from. It's as if race doesn't even exist for them, and when I used to look at Goodreads, white people would complain whenever they see a book that talks about race and other issues in the character's life. There's too much going on, they would write. A lot of white people don't want to know that race exists for them, I guess—and that's the problem.

The goal of accountability is to end harm through learning and growth. What's the goal of shaming? Shaming is more about the person who shames, and making themselves feel like they're better than another person.

Maybe not. But does that make your voice less important? Does that mean stories or speaking your truth don't have a role in activism, too? I don't know about that. Our society wouldn't be the same without the writers who came before you. Use your voice, Lark. in the way that you can—in the way that you know how. Use your passion to help the world. It doesn't help anyone, does it? To force yourself to fit another person's idea of what it means to make change. I think just existing is enough. Just living and breathing and loving ourselves and each other. That's a way to fight back, too. Don't you think that's true?

Not everyone is going to like you. You'll spend your entire life trying to mold yourself into someone else, but then you'll realize you wasted all that time getting others to like someone who isn't even you.

You know what I think? I think that adults don't want us teens to realize that we're powerful and deep. They don't want us to question the way things have always been. They don't want us to change the world, when this world is the only one they've ever known. I mean, I guess in that sense, I actually kind of feel sorry for adults. In the end, I think they're just afraid.

I honestly don't care that much about labels. I mean, I know they're important to a lot of people, and I can see why—I'm not knocking them. It's just...I kind of wish we could exist without having to worry about putting ourselves into categories. If there were no straight people, no violence or abuse or homophobia or anything, would we even need labels, or would we just be? Sometimes I wonder if labels can get in the way. Like, if I was adamant that I'm straight, does that force me into only liking girls? I don't know.

I realized—what makes a story good—I think it's a trick question, because every single reader will always want something different, right? So to one reader, a book is good, and to another reader, the same book is bad, and in a way, that means every single book in the world is both good and bad, and that cancels each other out, so the answer is nothing makes a story good, in the end. They're just...stories. Kind of like people. There are no good people or bad people, and stories are just an extension of people, so...Yeah.

And, you know, I'm not even saying that they need to be forgiven, because, yeah, that shit is traumatizing—but I think that they can grow and change and do some good for the people they hurt, too. If we only shame and don't ask for accountability'—yes, accountability, maybe that's what I was missing all along, yes—'then that would also mean they aren't able to change and help to end the harmful cycles this society is trapped in. And they have to. We all have to change, right? And the way we all put so much energy into calling everyone else out—I think that has more to do with us not wanting to look at ourselves, and the mistakes we've made, too.

I hate that term. White lie. White, a word our society has decided means pure, so that even when a white person commits a crime, they're innocent of the harm they've caused. Lies are inherently hurtful. Putting the word white in front of a lie doesn't make it innocent. I don't care about the reason. If you're a liar, Lark, then I can't trust you.

I wonder if it's possible. World peace. Adults like to roll their eyes at the thought. Why? If every human in the world finds peace inside themselves, wouldn't that solve all your world's problems? Maybe then people wouldn't want to hurt others so badly, if they weren't hurting so much, and if they weren't so afraid. Afraid of other people and even afraid of themselves.

Two gay guys cuddling in the heart of Brooklyn shouldn't feel this revolutionary, but suddenly, it does.

Is it possible to not have an identity? To exist, without any labels to say who I am and who I’m not? Maybe that’d feel good for some people, but for me, I’d feel anchorless – drifting with no one to say if what I’m feeling is real – if this emotion is something that I’ve made up in my mind, or if it’s something that others have felt, too.

You’re safe with me,” I say. “Okay?” “Yeah. Okay.

I hate that term. White lie. White, a word our society has decided means pure, so that even when a white person commits a crime, they're innocent of the harm they've caused. Lies are inherently hurtful. Putting the word white in front of a lie doesn't make it innocent. I don't care about the reason.

It's all right. It'll never be perfect. I know I have to get over the desire for anything I create to be perfect. But it still sucks when I know it could be better.

I want to be comfortable sharing the real me, and being loved for the real me.

Girls aren’t supposed to ask as many questions as she does; girls aren’t supposed to want to read and learn the sciences or attend universities in faraway empires. Yet she asked her questions and learned the sciences and went to her university, where she was one of the top students in her field, researching the properties of various plants and herbs and taking note of their medicinal uses and their effects on kraft.

We can all be assholes. We all fuck up sometimes. As long as we learn and grow and do better next time.

Seeing only one kind of person as the one who is worthy of love messed with my head when I was younger. It made me think that I wasn’t good enough for that role, too.

Maybe this is just a good chance to focus on other things," my dad tells me. "Nothing wrong with focusing on yourself every once in a while.

The real issue was me realizing that these were things society had assigned to girls, and while I didn’t even know what trans was, something about being forced into the role of girl has always upset the hell out of me.

It makes me wonder if I really am Felix, no matter how loud I shout that name.

Maybe it's not something you should think about. Maybe you should just do it, whatever it is you're too afraid to try. Just do it. Just say yes.