Sometimes, I cry so hard I can feel it in my ribs. / I feel like the real me is backed into a corner inside me
— Ama Asantewa Diaka, from “Saturday Evening WhatsApp Message,” Woman, Eat Me Whole
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
– George Orwell
one thing i need to start living by is “become the thing that you want” if i want friends who throw themed parties maybe i should start throwing those parties. if i want someone who writes me love letters maybe i should start writing letters for the people i love. if i want to hang out at museums and pretty cafes maybe i should invite my friends to these places. and maybe even then i won’t find the kind of people i want to be around. but then i would have become the exact person i want to be around. and maybe that’s good enough.
“The other day, lying in bed, I felt my heart beating for the first time in a long while. I realized how little I live in my body, how much in my mind”
-Rodger kamenetz, from Terra infirma
“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot explain it to myself.”
- Franz Kafka
