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
·
2024
James
I walked outside and over to the big fire, where the men were sitting. I was greeted and then I sat. We talked some about what happened to a runaway over at another farm. “Yeah, they beat him real good,” Doris said. Doris was a man, but that didn’t seem to matter to the slavers when they named him.
“All of them are going to hell,” Old Luke said.
“What happened to you today?” Doris asked me.
“Nothing.”
“Something must have happened,” Albert said.
They were waiting for me to tell them a story. I was apparently good at that, telling stories. “Nothing, except I got carried off to New Orleans today. Aside from that, nothing happened.”
“You what?” Albert said.
“Yes. You see, I thought I was drifting off into a nice nap about noon and the next thing I knew I was standing on a bustling street with mule-drawn carriages and whatnot all around me.”
“You’re crazy,” someone said.
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James
I walked outside and over to the big fire, where the men were sitting. I was greeted and then I sat. We talked some about what happened to a runaway over at another farm. “Yeah, they beat him real good,” Doris said. Doris was a man, but that didn’t seem to matter to the slavers when they named him.
“All of them are going to hell,” Old Luke said.
“What happened to you today?” Doris asked me.
“Nothing.”
“Something must have happened,” Albert said.
They were waiting for me to tell them a story. I was apparently good at that, telling stories. “Nothing, except I got carried off to New Orleans today. Aside from that, nothing happened.”
“You what?” Albert said.
“Yes. You see, I thought I was drifting off into a nice nap about noon and the next thing I knew I was standing on a bustling street with mule-drawn carriages and whatnot all around me.”
“You’re crazy,” someone said.
Read more of this excerpt...
WORDS TO LIVE BY
“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.”
Catch 22 · Joseph Heller · 1961
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