Human Experience

In a therapeutic culture, every personality trait becomes a problem to be solved. Anything too human—every habit, every eccentricity, every feeling too strong—has to be labelled and explained. And this inevitably expands over time, encompassing more and more of us, until nobody is normal

i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here

maybe i'm just a portrait of all the people i've loved and nothing else tastes so bittersweet. a little dash of my ex-best friend in the way i walk and laugh. my scarf tied in a double knot for that beautiful stranger at the bus stop. a whisper of my mother and the sigh of a lover in the way i braid my hair. pockets full of fire and infinite regret... See more

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man insid... See more

We have confused “normalization” for “universalization” when it comes to clinical terminology, taking diagnostic criteria and symptoms and morphing their meaning to become everyday descriptors of everyday behavior.