Days are a ladder…

“Days are a ladder. The wedding cake is in two halves on the kitchen worktop. She is training herself to do cat eyes, she has purchased liquid eyeliner but her hands are shaky. Perhaps cat eyes are the province of the young and smooth-skinned. In the magnifying mirror her eyes vanish beneath deep gouges. Her body is not quite the body she would wish for. It’s been all downhill since puberty, her real body is the body of an androgynous eleven-year-old, lanky and lean, built for speed.”

Olivia Laing “Crudo”. One of my all-time favorites.