“I don’t think people love me. They love versions of me I have spun for them, versions of me they have construed in their minds. The easy versions of me, the easy parts of me to love. Who’s going to love the girl that can’t stop crying? The girl that hurts herself? The girl that is losing control? The girl that is so sad she can’t get out of bed? The girl that keeps pushing everyone away? Who’s going to love the monster in me, who’s going to love me now?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,“ he says. “I don’t care,” I tell him honestly, and I don’t. He could leave me for the moon and I wouldn’t regret a second of the time we spent together. I know in this moment that I would rather have my heart broken than not have this. I make a contract with myself. I will love him and forget the consequences - just this once. He can have everything.”

there is a level of seduction that exists beyond the body. something less tangible, and perhaps more potent. anais nin understood this idea about how desire does not begin with touch but with language, perception, and the sharp electric pull of a mind that challenges and excites you. in her journals, desire is not just a physical hunger but a hunger of the intellect, an unraveling of thought before an unraveling of the body. to be drawn into someone’s mind, to feel their thoughts press against your own, can be more intoxicating than any physical closeness.