[burningphantompolice]

But it is impossible for anyone to say 'I am sacrificing myself without feeling bitterness. One of Maman's contradictions was that she thoroughly believed in the nobility of devotion, while at the same time she had tastes, aversions and desires that were too masterful for her not to loathe whatever went against them.

I remember one day realizing how important my body was to our family. Not my intellect, not my am-bitions of a writing career. Not the person shaped by thirty-six years. Just my body. I stood naked in front of the mirror after taking off my sweater that was covered in rice ce-real Sam had thrown-up. My breasts wilted like the plant in our kit-chen that I could never remember to water. My stomach spilled over the indent from my underwear like the foam on the edge of my luke-warm latte. My thighs were mar-shmallows punctured with a roas-ting stick. I was mush. But the only thing that mattered was that I could physically could keep us all going. My body was our motor. I forgave everything about the unrecognizable woman in the mirror.

[burningphantompolice]

He’ll never understand that. He’ll never understand that it isn’t him I don’t want. It’s the devastation.

[burningphantompolice]

Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared.

‘If you can—if it is allowed—come to me when I too am on my death bed.’ ‘Allowed!’ she said. ‘Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I’d break it into bits

. a grief observed C.S. Lewis / mitski

[burningphantompolice]

I wish you had made me an enemy, I said, rather than yourself. Mothers, I thought, would be perfect for that role.

You can’t be that for me, Mommy, Nikolai said. I’ve found a perfect enemy in myself.

[burningphantompolice]

I, in my corner, with my monstrous needs.

[burningphantompolice]

After love, no one is what they were before.

[burningphantompolice]

There are times when i am convinced i am unfit for any human relationship.

-Franz Kafka, from letters to felice

[burningphantompolice]

Mentally I'm here.