Mikah Mac

“At dawn, Grace would have woken to a mouthful of fur, the leopard's head resting gigantic on her knee. She would have thought. How gentle, this world. How tender, this mercy.”
― Danya Kukafka, Notes on an Execution

“Men ruptured by melancholy, bleeding from their hairlines. Teeth loose in the head as a blown rose’s petals. Weeping for home—more so than usual. Aching in the joints. The smell of an orange, it's said, could drive a debilitated man to derangement. The word ‘Mother’ is like a lance to the ribs. Old wounds reopen.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“Thinking of her was always like this: a rush of fondness, and then a bolt of fear. Love poems never seemed to include this thread of terror. Was he uniquely ill-disposed to this sentiment, too uneasy, too anxious for the act of loving without reserve? Or was the object of his affection uniquely vulnerable?”
― Ava Reid, A Theory of Dreaming

“She both wanted and did not want to be held, to be touched, to be comforted. She was afraid of wanting becoming needing. And she was afraid, so terribly afraid, that if she needed him, it would be the moment that he slipped away.”
― Ava Reid, A Theory of Dreaming