Hajar Er

“I just wanted to feel something. Something real. I saw the razor and I was so numb, and when I cut into myself, it felt--better.”
― Erin Stewart

“What if you hurt because it feels so good? Like you have a tingling, like someone left a switch on in your body. And nothing can turn the switch off except hurting? What does that mean?”
― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“I need release, I need to hurt myself more than the world can hurt me, and then I can comfort myself.”
― Kathleen Glasgow, Girl in Pieces

“One day my mother asked me what color my eyes were, The bank teller had just said something about a cat's green eyes, and my mother had immediately said that her eyes were green, too. A cat's eyes were green; her eyes were green; what color were my eyes? If they were green, too, then the teller might congratulate my mother on having guessed right. She had no idea that a normal person would find it insane for a mother to ask her only child what color her eyes were. But I sensed that she was also trying to see what it would be like to be that unattached to me. She was practicing, to see what it would be like to hurt me, a lot, to show how much she loved me. She had to be careful. If anyone found out that she loved me, we'd both be in trouble.
For a while I'd have to suffer, out in the open, the only girl without extra sneakers for gym class, but it was only because my mother's love was so much greater than all the other loves.
It was that much more dangerous, so she had to love me in secret, absolutely unobserved by anyone, especially me.”
― Sarah Manguso, Very Cold People