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21 " Was this how it was with all men? Did they all exist in a totally different reality - one in which you couldn't ask certain questions or the spell would be broken? "
― Melissa Broder , The Pisces
22 " On the Ace roof there was flamenco music playing, or bossa nova or something. It all seemed so contemporary and pleasant. The sun was setting and I ordered a white wine. Was this how everything was now? Just nice? I wondered if other people felt comfortable within niceness, or whether they didn't even notice that things were nice. Maybe they expected everything to be nice. Maybe nice was like air to them. "
23 " This was just what people did now. We went from emotion to phone. This was how you didn’t die in the twenty-first century. "
24 " I had felt, for a long time, that if I started crying I would not stop—that if I finally ripped, there would be nothing to stop my guts from falling out. I was scared of what might come out of me: the things I would see, what others would see. I was scared the feelings would eat me. Feelings were a luxury of the young, or someone much stronger than me—someone more at ease with being human. It was too late for tears. I was to keep going, to move forward on the same track in spite of life’s unsatisfying lifeness. I was not to ask where I was going or if it was where I really wanted to go. I was not to ask if I was actually going anywhere at all. But now, somehow, I was sobbing. "
25 " I felt silly asking to enjoy my life. I wondered if this was more than any human being should ask. Did anyone ever say that life was to be enjoyed and not suffered? "
26 " This was what I needed— multiple men at all times. Then I wouldn’t need any of them. Put me naked in a clamshell. Let them all fawn around me. "
27 " I believe in love more than anything. But I think I am very bad at it. "
28 " I'd been wrong about death ... There was no gentle escape. When I had taken those Ambien in Phoenix I thought there was a peaceful way to just kind of disappear. But death wasn't gentle. It was a robber. It stole you out of yourself, and you became a husk. "
29 " I don't know that we are ever really okay in life, but there are times when we feel closer to it - when we don't remember what it feels like to suffer. During these times we are moving forward in the void, forgetting we are going nowhere, so the void feels less daunting. We feel like we are handling shit. We are handling shit and doing work on ourselves. And then another person comes in, and meets us thee, and we think we can handle it. We think we can handle it, because in that moment we feel that we can handle anything. "
30 " I never asked to be born on the planet. I never asked to exist. But I am here now so could you maybe at least try and help me enjoy my life?'I felt silly asking to enjoy my life. "
31 " I moaned some more, not altogether fake, because I enjoyed hearing myself. But fake in the sense that I knew I was suddenly too self-conscious to be aroused. "
32 " Mythical creatures were born and died all the time. They were born when we needed them and they died when we no longer saw them through the same eyes. "
33 " I was wearing the same black dress that I had worn with Adam. I had like it so much when I got it, but now that it was no longer new it didn't feel good enough. Now that I had owned it for more than a minute it had gotten some of me on it. "
34 " I loved him too. But at the same time, who knew what love was exactly? I still didn't have it figured out. I remembered what Dr. Jude had said. The question is not what is love, but is it really love I'm looking for? "
35 " But I felt afraid of death, or at least, afraid of dying. Was there something that wasn’t death but wasn’t here either? "
36 " Men could smell an opening and they could smell a closing. "
37 " In my head I just kept saying, Shut up, shut up! I wanted to say, Don't you know I am dying?But even in my dying I couldn't be mean to him for fear that he would think I was a bitch. Why did I even care what he thought? Was my death that unimportant? How could I prioritize the feelings of this vacant, mustached kid over my own-me, who was probably dying? "
38 " I didn't know if the universe actively taught lessons. But if it did, the lesson was that I could not handle what I thought I could handle. The lesson was that I didn't need to act out with Theo to learn the lesson. I didn't have to suffer again. The suffering of others, Claire and now Diana, could remind me of my own suffering: the suffering of the past and my potential future suffering. Maybe this is why we did things in groups. Maybe this is why people had friends: so we could see ourselves and our own insanity in them. "
39 " But if Adam wanted me, there were others who would want me, maybe many others, even some who didn’t read Bukowski. "
40 " Gods, please help me to be happy. Let me do the will of the universe and be willing to do the will of the universe, whatever that even is. Clearly I know very little. Clearly what I think I know leads me only to a place of suicidal longing. I never asked to be born on the planet. I never asked to exist. But I am here now so could you maybe at least try and help me enjoy my life? "