Skye

“There’s this idea in psychoanalysis that I’ve always liked.” Julian pulled himself closer and rested his head in the crook of Paul’s arm. “It’s that what we call ‘love’ is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person—you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there’s nothing holding that part of you in place anymore. But your outline still holds, and it keeps holding. The thing you shaped yourself into by loving them, you never stop being that. The marks are permanent, so the idea of the person you loved is permanent, too.”
― Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights

“And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child's whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven, for the luxury of tenderness, of fondness, of being served a meal and being made to eat it, for the ability, at last, at last, of believing a parent's reassurances, of believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“We can take it slow; we can move fast. You can leave me and come back. You can be exactly who you are or you can be what you've always wanted to be. You can sell that gold twisted band, and we can find a studio in Queens, and I can cut your hair every other month. Let's live off rice and beans, oranges when they're in season. Let's make friends and forget them for days and weeks at a time. Let's ward off all of the terror with talk. Let's make love over and over, until our ribs hurt and we think we're tired of it, then do it once more, just to see if there's still life to be made.”
― August Thompson, Anyone's Ghost

“Gaunt was woven into everything he read, saw, wrote, did, dreamt. Every poem had been written about him, every song composed for him, and Ellwood could not scrape his mind clear of him no matter how he tried.”
― Alice Winn, In Memoriam