◦ “how anything becomes poetry if it bleeds for long enough. there is no symmetry. it wasn’t meant to be beautiful & yet here we are. & now nothing is ugly enough to escape this. nothing runs fast enough.”

◦ “how i opened my mouth in hunger & was instead devoured. yes, desperation is often longing in the wrong place. i was a fool, a lover, some starving thing. i thought that any boy who could kiss me broken, would one day kiss me whole again.”

◦ "for him, i was a forest fire, a dying star, a petrol station set ablaze. In my stomach i held every facet of desire, my heart turning over like a puzzle in my chest."

◦ “i dreamt of being wanted; some object of desire — something heady & sweet & worthy to be held down.”

◦ "please make me empty, if i'm empty then i can receive, if i can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me i'm not alone! i cannot bear this loneliness. above all it is loneliness."

◦ "i am fond of lovers but i cannot love, i am too far away, i am banished."

◦ "i am troubled and harsh and hopeless. though i have love inside me. but i don’t know how to use love. sometimes it scratches like barbs."

◦ "but the loneliness never left me. i always took it with me. but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company"

◦ "i am not sure at all if love is salve, or just a deeper kind of wound."

◦ "here i am, back and still smoldering with passion, like wine smoking. not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger."

◦ "sometimes it's as if i'm composed of nothing but symptoms of illness, i am a phantom built out of pain."

◦ "i want to melt into you, to be so terribly close to you that my own self disappears."

◦ "swollen with words you never said, swollen with hoarded love."

◦ "to be loved is to be held. but to be understood is to be unveiled."

◦ "my whole life i was never looking for something bigger than myself, and then i met you and i want to dedicate every day of my life to you. you’re it for me. you are why i am here. without you, i am nothing."

◦ "but i love him to the point of starvation. to devour would not be enough."

◦ "i think about you all the time. every day, all day. all i ever want to do is be with you. even if we aren’t doing anything at all."

◦ "i took it for granted. you were so much a part of me i hadn't realized the absence of you would be fatal. like taking out a lung. what air is there to breathe now?"

◦ "every time i close my eyes, i see you. i’ve always seen you. even if you tell me you don’t feel the same. even if i walk away knowing there’s not a chance in hell of us ever being something, i’ll wait for you."

◦ "darling, lord knows you're beautiful. but you're evil. fact is, you're downright vicious too. but each night i look up at the stars in the sky, and i can't help it but i still wish i was with you"

◦ "i have never experienced genuine reciprocated romantic love and sometimes i think i never will, which is deliciously ironic because if i was born for anything, i was born to love; and the universe is hell-bent on making sure i never have the chance to"

◦ "i don't want a romantic partner. i want someone to choose me, over and over again, without expecting anything in return. something purely unconditional. it doesn't even have to be romantic, i just want a genuine connection where i don't have to constantly put up a façade or carefully curate parts of myself they find worth loving."