Melissa Broder

To want what you had—now, that was an art, a gift maybe.

You never think, in your fantasies, that the object of the fantasy can be hurt.

Why were some sadnesses so much more permissible than others?

We kissed quickly and then I watched him swim off. I wondered if I had been too engaged in the kiss, too desperate and needy, falling down a hole. Maybe he could sense my addictive tendencies coming off of me like bad perfume. Maybe he was just sexually attracted to me? It was hard to say, but I assumed I had done something wrong, because, well, I always did.

?
No, I needed him and maybe it was okay to need him. This is how love was spiritual, when it felt like this: unity with each other, the self, and all. And if this wasn’t love, then

The more you went for the ephemeral light, the more the void opened on the other side

I realized now that what I had to do, in spite of what others said, was not try to change a mood but surrender to it.

Did chasing the light inevitably lead us here? If we didn’t chase the light, did people like us just end up here anyway?

Sometimes everything is just so bleh that you need to fucking cut it with a knife.”

hen I saw him under the moon and it was like the first time I had seen him. He was just meant to be mine. In my mind I heard more words, and they said, No one knows