Crush
You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.
From the archives
·
2023
Our Strangers
The cat says, "I'm only here on sufferance." The dog doesn't understand, so the cat defines the word sufferance. It has to do with a kind of tolerance. It has to do with permission that is only indirect, permission through failure to prohibit. She uses the word tacit. The dog doesn’t understand tacit. The cat gives up. She thinks he probably got the idea anyway.
The cat knows they love the dog and merely tolerate her. There is enthusiasm when they greet the dog at the front door. She sits off in the background, watching. They see her and say, “Hello, kitty!” but without much warmth. The dog is more demonstrative than she is. He wouldn’t understand the word demonstrative, though he enacts it. (He wouldn’t understand the word enact.)
Read more of this excerpt...
Our Strangers
The cat says, "I'm only here on sufferance." The dog doesn't understand, so the cat defines the word sufferance. It has to do with a kind of tolerance. It has to do with permission that is only indirect, permission through failure to prohibit. She uses the word tacit. The dog doesn’t understand tacit. The cat gives up. She thinks he probably got the idea anyway.
The cat knows they love the dog and merely tolerate her. There is enthusiasm when they greet the dog at the front door. She sits off in the background, watching. They see her and say, “Hello, kitty!” but without much warmth. The dog is more demonstrative than she is. He wouldn’t understand the word demonstrative, though he enacts it. (He wouldn’t understand the word enact.)
Read more of this excerpt...
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.”
NON-FICTION
