i want to be seen, but not known. like a painting in a gallery, admired from a distance, but the artist themselves remains invisible in the back room, sipping chamomile, the questions in my notebook are starting to feel like a dare. I get that impulse. The price of being truly known feels astronomical some days -- all the explaining, the managing of expectations, the endless revisions of their assumptions about you. Better to be a pretty picture, admired but untouchable.