longing, desire, shame, obsession, disgust, tragedy and the sheer mess of love and queerness and life. james baldwin just wrecks your heart.
"then, for the first time in my life, i was really aware of another person's body, of another person's smell. we had our arms around each other. it was like holding in my hand some rare, exhausted, nearly doomed bird which i had miraculously happened to find."
wuthering heights, price of salt and now giovanni's room completes my trilogy stories of love in their beauty and ugliness.
"If I could make you stay, I would,' he shouted. 'If I had to beat you, chain you, starve you-if I could make you stay, I would.' He turned back into the room; the wind blew his hair. He shook his finger at me, grotesquely playful. 'One day, perhaps, you will wish I had."