‘Only I can meet her insatiable need, and she won’t let me provide.’

‘183,671 other people die, including Queen Elizabeth II.’

‘Why are the victims always pixilated out like they are the guilty ones?’

‘Words like “baby” or “foetus” were carefully avoided; the visit handled with matter-of-fact precision.’

‘Every morning since her disappearance I pounded the sidewalks.’

‘You imagined it in a large bed, a romantic headboard like something from a fin de siècle Parisian novel.’

‘There is no embarrassment— that was swallowed by the acid— but I know that future me, anxiously retracing the events of this night, will be horrified.’

‘Mother and daughter laugh together, at the fact they can now connect.’

‘Cleaning delivered very little in terms of salary or cachet, but she could sleep well every night knowing that she had done something honest and good.’

‘Once, long ago, it had been her shyness that trapped her.’

‘Trauma can have the immense power of making parts of yourself, parts you once knew with certainty, seem unknowable.’

‘All the time-saving devices haven’t given us more life— they have confined us in the prison of productivity.’

‘Over dinner, he’ll announce he likes to role play during sex, sometimes play a little rough.’

‘The woman opposite me in this small attic room is observing me. In particular, she is observing me in relation to my neurotype.’

‘The ancestral blood of my matriarchs runs high with sodium.’

‘Intergenerational trauma is, in my experience, often analysed with an automatic alignment of gender: fathers to sons and mothers to daughters.’

‘I’m afraid that either someone in my head or someone in my life will judge me for my expression of need.’

‘Dreams of being chased can sometimes indicate social anxiety, or hint at the fact that there's something you've been avoiding.’

‘I am a mosaic composed of contradictions: I still love the people I will never forgive.’

‘It’s no coincidence that when I accepted the anger I felt about the abuse I faced, I became proactive in my pursuit of being a writer.’

‘It’s just that women seem to suffer a particular kind of burnout, driven by this insatiable need to prove themselves.’

‘Each hanging sack represented some asshole, ex-lover, husband, wife, some significant other.’

‘You spend a lot of time thinking about all the ways you might be judged when you enter into a relationship in which you pay to get naked and have someone touch you.’

‘Can a bunch of cis men make a responsible and meaningful movie about a woman’s struggle to liberate herself from the patriarchy?’

‘Naively, I did not expect shaving my head to be a big deal.’

‘You still experience that feeling of self-consciousness that pricks you every time you slip into leggings and tank tops.’

‘Forget about aliens and spaceships for a moment; the truth of the capability of human beings to commit monstrous acts is here, right now.’

‘My gay imposter syndrome and writing imposter syndrome are always competing to take up more headspace.’

‘Sometimes, I would like to just post the fucking photo. Without overthinking it.’

‘I fear being labeled a problem patient.’