Jilly

“...the sense that men were alien, that if I were to foster any intimacy with a man it would be both despite and because of the fact that I could only be a body to him. And I had been right to be afraid. How can a body ever be safe when it is only a body? How can we expect that no stranger will be tempted to torch an empty house? But Nathan was not alien. He had seen the lights on in the house: he has discerned the scenes that took place away from the windows, in the secret rooms. His acknowledgement of my body had allowed me to start to forget about it. The facade of the house has been my duty, my obsession, and now I could wander away from it for days, trusting it had proved its use.”
― Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service

“I'd wanted to hurt her with my body, with our differences...in that old competition between women”
― Melissa Broder, Milk Fed

“There are 100 ex-boyfriends, but two that really matter. Their names are
similar: Aaron and Adam. Adam and Aaron. Aaron because I was in love,
Adam because he beat me. I met Adam first, then Aaron. The wound, then
the salve. Maybe you don’t know that you’re wounded until you receive the
salve. The salve that makes everything come back.”
― Ling Ma