Melissa

“By the time I was thirteen, I had divorced my body. Like a bitter divorced parent, I accepted that our collaboration was mandatory. I needed her and hated her all the more for it.”
― Melissa Febos, Girlhood

“Intimacy, I’ve found, has little to do with romance. Maybe it is the opposite of romance, which is based on a story written by someone else. It is a closeness to another person that requires closeness with oneself. It is not watching lightning strike from the window but being struck by it.”
― Melissa Febos, Girlhood

“Why do we teach girls that their perspectives are inherently untrustworthy?" I would yell. I want to reclaim these words- after all, melodrama comes from melos, which means "music," "honey"; a drama queen is, nonetheless, a queen- but they are still hot to the touch. This is what I keep returning to: how people decide who is or is not an unreliable narrator. And after that decision has been made, what do we do with people who attempt to construct their own vision of justice?”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“Fantasy is, I think, the defining cliche of female queerness. No wonder we joke about U-Hauls on the second date. To find desire, love, everyday joy without men's accompanying bullshit is a pretty decent working definition of paradise.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House