One prominent motif that resonates throughout the book is the idea of “more,” whether it is something that Elyse feels she needs to be, or something she wants to ask for. The concept appears many times, most prominently in Chapter 11, but also in the chapters that follow, which carry the concept through to the end. In Chapter 11, the concept of more is something that the “she” in the verse is afraid to ask for. In the poem, “she” feels a lack of something in “the empty spaces where More belongs” (139), but she is also paradoxically overwhelmed by the idea of more. The text implies that the female figure—implied to be Elyse—does not feel safe to ask for anything more from the person she is currently dating.

This concept of “more” appears again in Chapter 15: “House Clothes,” when Elyse breaks up with her unnamed boyfriend. She reflects that they both asked for and gave each other “many different kinds of More” (179), but it was not enough to make their relationship work. She thus extends the motif of “more,” indicating that there are different “flavors” of it, but her experiences teach her that people’s expectations in this regard are often misaligned.

Importantly, the motif of “more” goes beyond the things that Elyse wishes for but is afraid to ask for in relationships. The concept also encompasses those aspects that she believes herself to fundamentally lack. For instance, in Chapter 19, “Cows, On Purpose,” she reflects that she had been safer when she kept her quasi-relationship with Jonas long-distance, as she was better able to maintain the “different versions of herself” (229) and mask her differences. In this way, the motif of “more” highlights her general feelings of anxiety about the expectations of neurotypical behavior, to which she does not adhere.