Anyway, maybe there weren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain.

And she finds it difficult to believe—that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy.

What you get is no longer what you see.

Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely necessary. What do you have to offer me I can't find otherwise except humiliation? Which I no longer need.

Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.

If you disagree with your government, that's political. If you disagree with your government that is approaching theocracy, then you're evil.

A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.