Your world of sanitizer and “fresh scent” is the real lie. You spray Febreze on a sofa that has absorbed the farts of a thousand Netflix marathons, and you call it “fresh.” I call it perfume on a corpse. I prefer my filth raw. I like the way my pillowcase smells like my own sour saliva from last night. I like the grit under my fingernails because it’s a record of where I’ve been—the crumbling brick I touched on the walk home, the change from the vending machine, the soil from the cracked pot where my dead fern used to live.

Because once you accept the filth—once you make it your point of view—you realize you were never above it anyway. You were just pretending.

It’s the only way to live without going crazy.

When I look at a beautiful woman, I don’t see her gloss. I see the sebum clogging her pores. I wonder if the shine on her cheek is highlighter or the natural grease of a long day. I wonder if her perfect ponytail is hiding a patch of psoriasis. And I love her more for it. Because the alternative—the plastic, airbrushed, sterile version of life—is a horror movie.

And honestly?

I lick my finger to turn the page.

Give me the sticky floor of a dive bar. Give me the mystery stain on the bus seat. Give me the gummy residue on a library book cover. That’s texture. That’s history.