diasporic identities as bootlegs

People say that a crush is just a projection of all your desires onto someone before you know enough about them that they could never live up to it. But I think a crush is actually a fictionalisation of yourself as another person, an autofiction of self-desire.
—Huw Lemmey

When I say I have a crush on you, what I’m saying is that I’m in love with the distance between us. I’m not in love with you: I don’t even know you. I’m in love with the escape that fantasizing about you promises. Poisoned, stung, bitten and bridled. The promise of being ground down until I disappear.