I do not have fantasies. Fantasy opens me up; I become fantasy. I am the dangerous daughter, the thigh-stroking, soft-tongued lover, the pit, the well, the well of horniness, laughter rolling out of me like gravy boiling over the edge of a pan. I become the romantic; the mystic; the one without shame, rocking myself on the hip of a rock, a woman as sharp as coral. I make in my mind the muscle that endures, tame rage and hunger and spirit and blood. I become the rock, I become the knife. I am myself the mystery. The me that will be waits for me. If I cannot dream myself new, how will I find my true self?
–Dorothy Allison, “The Muscles of the Mind”