Realization is a pendulum the size of the moon. It won’t stop slamming into me.
He’s stolen my bed my blanket my pillow. I have nothing but the floor. I will have nothing but the floor. I will never fight.
I’m adrift, suspended in a pool of senselessness, but something about her keeps tugging, sparking my nerves, errant currents pushing me to the surface of something – an emotional revelation – that trembles into existence only to evaporate, seconds later, as if it might be terrified to exist. This goes on and on and on and on and on Lightyears. Eons. over and over whispers of clarity g a s p s o f o x y g e n and I’m tossed back out to sea.
All at once I implore my mind to imagine nothing but walls. Walls. White walls. Blocks of concrete. Empty rooms. Open space. I build walls until they begin to crumble, and then I force another set to take their place. I build and build and remain unmoving until my mind is clear, uncontaminated, containing nothing but a small white room. A single light hanging from the ceiling. Clean. Pristine. Undisturbed.
He, of course, very politely took their side, insisting that he didn’t mind, and my mother asked him again if he wanted more tea and he said no, thank you, and she poured him more tea anyway, and she asked him if he wanted more food and he said no, thank you, and she filled four large Tupperware containers with leftovers and stacked them in front of him.
It was obvious, every time he put them in the same room. They were like magnets.
Right now all I want is this. I just want to be here. With you. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.
There is madness in the repetition, in the repetition, in the repetition that underscores our lives. It is only in the desperate seconds before death that we realize the windows against which we broke our bodies were only mirrors, all along.
I don’t mean to be cruel. It’s just that my heart is so thoroughly broken I fear I am beyond repair.
Making magic is far more interesting than making sense.
Their friendship had changed seasons.
You realize then that anger is safer than kindness, that isolation is safer than community. You shut everything out. Everyone. But some days, no matter what you do, the pain gets so bad you’d bury yourself alive just to make it stop.
Adam hasn’t changed a bit. Still moody. No sense of humor. Generally irritated. Sometimes I can’t remember why we’re friends.
She wanted to go home, yes, and she wanted to spend more time with Father and she wanted to eat tulips and sit by the pond, but even after all the trials and tribulations of Furthermore – or perhaps because of them – she didn’t think she could ever go back to an ordinary life. She knew she’d never say no to adventure.
The world has not yet broken him. Such freedom in ignorance.
My parents were so generally unimpressed with their own children that I really believed I could, I don’t know, win something like a Nobel Peace Prize, and they’d only reluctantly attend the ceremony, all the while pointing out that lots of people won Nobel Prizes, that, in fact, they gave out Nobel Prizes every year, and anyway the peace prize was clearly the prize for slackers, so maybe next time I should focus my energy on physics or math or something.
I didn’t believe it was possible to hide a woman’s beauty. I thought women were gorgeous no matter what they wore, and I didn’t think they owed anyone an explanation for their sartorial choices. Different women felt comfortable in different outfits.
I am no longer afraid of fear, and I will not let it rule me. Fear will learn to fear me. EIGHTEEN Adam leads me toward the couch, but Kenji intercepts us.
I thought women were gorgeous no matter what they wore, and I didn’t think they owed anyone an explanation for their sartorial choices.
How many times will you apologize for who you are?