Pity the Animal Quotes

“I feared her gaze—she made people feel like the only ones in the room. I wanted to feel fractional.”
― Chelsea Hodson, Pity the Animal

“When I still lived in Arizona, I sat down on a tattered futon at the house party and my blond friend handed me a bottle of blue Gatorade. There's vodka in it, she said. She was the kind of woman that served drinks at other people's parties. The vodka gave strength to my desires. Everyone watched.

I was the last person to leave the party. As I buttoned my coat, the host of the party touched his beard, laughed, and said, No no no. I wrapped my scarf around my neck, picked up my bike leaning against the living room wall and walked toward the door. Stay, he said, and he wasn't asking.

...Though he did force himself on me, the truth is I stayed at the party waiting for something to happen. Everyone at the party left, and still, nothing had happened. He wasn't a stranger―I knew he was a bad man, I'd known that for a long time. That's why I stayed.

I spent so much of my youth waiting for something to happen. Unsupervised, I had my choice of dark rooms. I knew which rooms were bad and I entered then anyway. It was a sort of power.”
― Chelsea Hodson, Pity the Animal

“There is an island where former versions of myself gallop around on all fours.”
― Chelsea Hodson, Pity the Animal

“I wished his question was, Wanna know what it's like to be the one who enters? because I do and I wish that knowledge was as simple as holding a man in my hands. I want to see my desire as a protrusion leading me into dark rooms. If I can't have that, then I can attempt to reduce myself to the most vulnerable object possible. Either I await instruction on how to be a dutiful thing or I am the explorer leading this ship or I am a piece of luggage holding other belongings. I take up hardly any space at all.”
― Chelsea Hodson, Pity the Animal

“Fear breeds fantasy, and I feared my mind would be forgotten.”
― Chelsea Hodson, Pity the Animal