••••••

‘no, my abuse made me a spineless jellyfish living in perpetual fear of standing up for myself, but thank you for framing that as a positive thing you like about me’

“I am a good person despite my abuse, not because of it”

Abuse made me hypersensitive to other people’s emotions while neglecting my own boundaries and comfort because I’m afraid of upsetting someone or having them lash out at me.

Some people born before the Model T lived to see a man walk on the moon. To be strapped like that to the masthead of history would make me frantic. At parties I’d shout I’m frantic, and you? Like a fire, hungry and resisting containment, I’d pound at the windows, my mouth full of hors d’oeuvres. Outside—sweeping plains of green flora and service stations. Odd, for an apocalypse to announce itself with such bounty. —Kaveh Akbar, from “Exciting the Canvas,” Calling a Wolf a Wolf

Whenever you’re feeling sudden calm its because I took your voodoo doll out for a picnic on a grassy hill

thank you

The gates of heaven