In this busy, dusty world, having accomplished nothing, I suddenly recalled all the girls I had known, considering each in turn, and it dawned on me that all of them surpassed me in behaviour and understanding; that I, shameful to say, for all my masculine dignity, fell short of the gentler sex.

Each day a little more mistaken
and a little more forgiven.

Harriet and Margot have the kind of past
that makes the present dubious.

Life isn't ill-natured;
it's just dirt poor,
like any other public resource.

Her brain was a ball of hair in a bath drain,
as miserably dense as it was inert.

how beautiful is imitation, she thinks,
when its vessel breaks the heart.

It's a traitorous aspect of empathy, Magsalin notes.
The slightest connection suffices.

It is terrible how grief is a glutton
⸺it swallows everything in its path.

That was how desire got power over me,
by being unacknowledged.

There is a kind of vapor from the two of them,
comfort and secrets being exchanged like viruses.

She falls into the empty place
left by my tardy and inadequate love.

I've come to believe in ordinary loss,
its grinding and mundane evil.

In a moment, and for a lifetime,
we would be wrapped again in our crueler disguises

— we would wear the thick skin
which would seem better than being hurt —

but for that moment, briefly,
we sliced ourselves open and were afraid together.

We will be okay.
You will not feel pain.
You will not be alone.

If we are to have magical bodies,
we must have magical minds.

for someone to truly suffer…
they must have hope.

Friendships in America are often more
like pleasure crafts than life rafts.
Not built to brave the really rough waters.

The past is almost always innocent of the future

Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
and carves out a person
and makes you believe it's all true

So the fates have chosen for me
And it’s a lot for me to try and take in
If I forget to breathe
It’s not that…

I don’t want to live.
Always I try

Forgiveness is a winding road

life is long, you only need one
who thinks you're amazing

I love it when you lie to me
That shit feel like therapy

What doesn't kill you
makes you regret it

But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height

ⰄⰅ

There are things that we, as a species, have figured out how to do.

Things like reading and sleeping.

Yet you’ve decided: nope.
I’m going to do it my own way