reading at midnight 🌙

"What do you think, Samantha?" Fosco asks me.
That it's a piece of pretentious shit. That it says nothing, gives nothing. That I don't understand it, that probably no one does and no one ever will. That not being understood is a privilege I can't afford. That I can't believe this woman got paid to come here. That I think she should apologize to trees. Spend a whole day on her knees in the forest, looking up at the trembling aspens and oaks and whatever other trees paper is made of with tears in her languid eyes and say, I'm fucking sorry. I'm sorry that I think I'm so goddamned interesting when it is clear that I am not interesting. Here's what I am: I'm a boring tree murderess.

I tell myself I have to fight this - remember you hate them, remember they hate you - but all at once I fail. I succumb. I allow the sick need that no degree of revulsion can kill to be picked up out of the cold, wet dark and petted. I melt into it, their hug, allowing, nay, willing myself to be crushed. I become one with the blob. Or as close to one as I can become.