“I want to crush my cigarette on his eyelid. I would rather he keep fucking me for the rest of the night than lie here staring at me tracing my ribs with his fingertips, acting like what happened meant something.”

“What if I can't ever be who you want me to be? What if I keep letting you down?”

“Even though I'm sleeping again, everything still feels a little rickety, like I'm here but not quite here, like I'm just a stand-in for my real self, like someone could just reach over and pinch me and I'd deflate. I thought I was feeling better, but I don't know anymore.”

“And that's when it hits me, the punch in the stomach, the carving out of my insides. That's when I realize that none of this is a movie. I will not go out with a bang. There is no ending. There are no credits. I will wake up and I will keep waking up and this will always be waiting for me.”

“I feel the ghost of his fingers inside me.”

“It feels like the ground is breathing and the air has hands, like everything is moving except me, like I am the only thing solid, like it is the rest of the world that is dizzy.”

“And my name sounds like flowers in his mouth.”