I look for things that inspire me. I ask myself, what am I putting out into the world? Am I contributing in a positive way or am I telling old stereotypes and old ideas of what women were or what women were thought to be? It’s really important for me to move the needle in some way and shock people and surprise them.

It's June, the evenings touching our skins like plush, milkweed sweetening the sticky air which pulses with moths, their powdery wings and velvet tongues. In the dusk, nighthawks and the fluting voices from the pond, its edges webbed with spawn. Everything leans into the pulpy moon.

Margaret Atwood, the last day

Whoever you are: in the evening step out of your room, where you know everything; yours is the last house before the far-off: whoever you are. With your eyes, which in their weariness barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold, you lift very slowly one black tree and place it against the sky: slender, alone. And you have made the world. And it is huge and like a word which grows ripe in silence. And as your will seizes on its meaning, tenderly your eyes let it go…

Rainer Maria Rilke, "entrance", the book of Images, trans. Edward Snow

i made your favorite dish. i made you something you’ve never tried before. i love you. i spent twenty minutes chopping. my grandmother made this for me when i was little. i made this dairy free for you. i love you. i want to eat together. the onions made me cry. i love you. i learned this recipe for you. i love you. i made this special for your birthday. i love you. i know you don’t like peppers. i love you. i love you. i love you.