Notes of a Crocodile

by Qiu Miaojin

The whole world loves me, but what does it matter since I hate myself?

College—now there’s a system. Though it’s not quite death, it’s a pretty close second.

I felt that.

Like death, college serves as a kind of escape hatch. But while death takes you straight to the morgue, college is a single rope dangling loose from the inescapable net of society.

Legitimately, this is the argument I make with myself every time I think about going back to school. College feels like placing a pause on life and attempting to run from society to something more familiar than life.

Man’s greatest suffering is born of mistreatment by his fellow man.

The force applied to the bow was enough to shoot clean through my target, and with a single arrow our fates intermingled in a pool of blood.

‘Only healthy people are capable of being in love. Using love to treat an illness just makes the illness even worse.’