—CRACKLIN’ ROSE YOU’RE A STORE-BOUGHT WOMAN

 

 

…That’s what’s called an awfully tight squeeze.

 

…Thank God for tow trucks.

 

…I think these blueberries are trying really hard to find a way to kill me, and get away with it.

This might just be the year, even if belatedly.

 

…What I’ve learned is the best way to maintain a low profile is to keep your head under the covers until the snoring stops and everyone’s gone. Then jab earplugs deep into your cerebellum and try very hard to enjoy the Apollo-like silence. 

 

…It was a very long weekend, albeit it incredibly epic despite some minor mishaps.

 

…But aren’t they always?

 

…I’ve been wondering if I would ask, if I was in such dire straits. I’m thinking I probably never would, and so I’d just die.

 

…Sometimes you don’t physically have to be there to be there. At least that’s what I’m thinking.

 

…I’m guessing I’ve got about a year left of being here before I go underground (not like that) and just write for myself, to myself, as if that’s not what I’ve been doing all along.

 

…Sure seems like recuperation should get easier.

 

…Sometimes it’s hard to know if your decisions are good ones or not.

 

…I hope those people I keep hearing in my room are not real people.

 

…If you try, you can find symbolism in just about anything.

 

…I’m very far from it, but I wonder what it would be like to be perfect.

 

…If you can ask it, you can make it. That’s what I’m counting on anyway.

 

…A bar’s tableau with a creepy clown and a skeleton playing Tug-of-War with a child near the ceiling is not something a person should ever have to see.

 

…I heard Jeff was amazing.

 

…There are a thousand opportunities to be a great parent, answer life’s questions, solve problems, make things better, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.

 

…One sign you’re in a bit of trouble is when your handwriting looks like it’s in Farsi.

 

…“Love is all you need.” I used to denigrate that lyric, but now I think they may have been right all along.

 

…I’m not sure how you can possibly say and Attorney General and State Prosecutor is “dumb as a rock.” I’m not sure how a candidate, who is supposedly a Christian, can tell a competing candidate that he wished “she would go to Hell.” I mean, really??

 

…What isn’t any fun whatsoever is seriously believing you’re going to die and not having a solution.

 

…I remember the first time I knew I was old. I was watching TV and every star was beautiful or handsome and they all looked immensely younger than me.

 

…I still very much wish I had a dog, but I never again want to experience the death of a pet I love.

 

…I know it sounds odd, but if you watch The Golden Girls you’ll find most of the correct answers about many of life’s conundrums.

 

…Big weekend here. I hope yours is stress-free and that you’re surrounded by joy and love. 

 

…Thank you for being a friend.   

      

—WELL, THAT WAS SOMETHING ELSE                 

 

                             Summer Scalping: Scarecrows

                                    

         Mother teaches us how to steal.

         We start with Henderson’s corn field, undercover of the night, our station wagon skulking down the dusty aisle ends like a muttering alligator.  She throws us out, tosses us the gunnies and we scamper through the rows and I start ripping off ears as fast as I can.  It feels like cheap murder or beating up a kid, someone helpless and smaller than me.  When I pull them from the stalk, they make a scratching noise similar to Mother’s fingernails on the arm rest or the sketchy rumble of her cigarette cough.  The corn leaves are ridged and sweaty and the corn hair tickles my neck, but just for a moment until Davey jams his elbow into my rib.

         “Stop fucking around,” he says.  His eyes are electric brown, Mexican jumping beans.  Black smears of grease sit below them.  Davey takes this shit seriously.  He looks like a resentful quarterback or a warrior looking for a scalp.

         When I still don’t get it, he slugs me in the gut.  “Don’t be stupid.  We work in the middle.”

         He hisses, flops down and slides in the dirt on his belly, an iguana now, a combat soldier.  He motions that I should follow and I do because I am scared and confused and dizzy.  Old Man Henderson is who we work for during the day, and here we are robbing him at night.  I know these fields as well as I know the twelve-by-twelve bedroom that I share with Davey.  We shouldn’t be here.  We’re poor but we’re not starving.

         In the center of the field the stalks sway with the breeze, their tops tipping and dipping, brushing our shoulders as we work, whispering conspiratorially.  I can’t stop shivering even though it’s a hot, humid summer night.

         Davey has a flashlight.  One end is stuffed in his mouth.  Light comes out the other end in swaths and cones.  Davey’s face glows menacing lavender.  He sees me staring and thwacks me across the forehead with the flashlight.  He calls me a stupid fag as I finger the new bruise and rub his saliva from my eye.

         I helped Mr. Henderson put up the new set of scarecrows that stand at the sides of the field, arms outstretched as if crucified.  It was a lazy job, given to me, I presumed, as a kindly favor.  Usually I was charged with moving the 20-foot long irrigation pipes and shoring up rows or pruning, which is the same as prison work when the temperature gets past a hundred.  Anyway, Mrs. Henderson gave him half a dozen Albertson grocery bags stuffed with all sorts of clothing articles and Mr. Henderson said, “Go to it.”  As a test run for bringing up the news to Mother, I’d once confessed to Mr. Henderson that I wanted to be a fashion designer when I grew up.  His eyes worked over my statement and out of his shirt pocket he pulled a piece of straw the size of a pencil.  He chewed it for a while.  It took him so long to answer that I thought my shame might burn me to death, but then he showed me a grin.  It was wide and toothy and real.  “That’s wonderful, son.”  No one had ever called me that.  “It’s important to have large-sized dreams.”  So I figured there was a tie to me confiding in Mr. Henderson that day and him wanting me to put together a collection of scarecrows.  I did as I was told.  I would have, no matter the request, since I was getting paid cash money and, as anybody can tell you, that’s a hard thing to come by.  When I was finished I had six fairly realistic men.  They were skinny things because the straw kept slipping down their drawers or out of their sleeves.  But they looked fine, stylish even. Afterward there were a few garments left over, one being a sky blue turtleneck that didn’t make sense on a scarecrow.  Mr. Henderson said, “You like it?”  I lied and said, “No,” because even though the color was blue, it was too light, pastel, bordering on effeminate, and I didn’t want him or anyone else getting ideas.  “Take it,” he said.  “Go on.”  And I did.  After I got home, I stuck it between the box springs and the mattress I share with Davey.  One of these days I plan on showing him, but that might not be for awhile.

         When our gunny sacks are full of corn we stagger in the dark toward the lurking station wagon.  Mother sits smoking with the dome light on.  She doesn’t blink, doesn’t say a word, just starts the engine and pulls the silver stick shift on the side of the steering wheel and we drive off.

         The next morning Mr. Henderson calls me to his office which is a trailer sunk into the sun-baked mud northeast of where some broke-down combines slumber.  His golden lab, Leroy, scents me, sneezes, and scampers off.  A crow caws.

         He shouts to come on in when I knock.  I hesitate and try to measure the tone of his voice, sift through it like a gold miner, for evidence of a mood.  The door catches and won’t open.  “Kick it at the bottom!” he tells me.  I wonder why he doesn’t just open the thing for me.

         “You gotta kick it!” he says.  I still can’t tell if there’s anything to learn from his tone, but by now I’m running and his voice isn’t very loud.  Stalks slap me because I’m off balance.  My feet burn, my eyes sting.  It’s not even noon yet.  I sweat.  I run through the corn row and don’t stop.               

 

—I ALREADY FEEL LIKE DOING IT AGAIN

 

 

A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing 

 

 

She looked inside the well of me, way down into the gray, gulley of my throat, and said, You know, a girl is a half-formed thing.

 

She said, Even from way up here, I can smell the sins of your uncles and cousins.  They’re still hideous, but they taste like stale cinnamon, once spiced and threatening, neutered now by age, but not forgotten.

 

She said, I could read your palm, it would be easier, right, but this is more interesting, don’t you think?  I mean, look at how your tonsil bell wobbles, so nervous to have me this close.

 

Chuckling, she ran a jagged fingernail down the length of my jugular and tapped out some kind of code, piercing tufts of skin.

 

She said, You used to dream big.  You used to notice cloud shapes and the way a sprig of lavender can cleanse any pallet, if its freshly picked.  She said, You used to laugh a whole lot more.

 

She shifted a bit, owning my eyes now--instead of the endless cavern that is my mouth--clamping them inside a crescent wrench.

 

She said, A girl is a half-formed thing because she’s just learning whom to trust, which isn’t at all easy, since many of the monsters scream gibberish while their claws are busy shredding skin and snapping bones.

 

When I tried to reply, she slammed my jaw shut like a well-oiled dresser drawer.

 

She said, Listen to me.  She said, A girl is a half-formed thing, but I’m counting on you to find the other half, deliver it to me whole, and explain how one piece fits into the other, and why they even should.

  

 

—HELLO, LONE RANGER    

 

 

…Got lost again, and almost wrote back.

 

…One question is where to put 100+ pounds of blueberries.

 

…After a very big scare, it looks like my niece is out of the woods for now. She’s incredibly skinny and has lost all of her hair due to the chemo treatments, but she’s walking again, albeit gingerly.

 

…When someone says, “Can I ask you a question?” you know it’s not going to be your run-of-the-mill question.

 

…Shouldn’t we all be so fortunate that we think to ourselves, I’m the luckiest person alive?

 

…I’ve got a lot to tell you the next time we talk.

 

…Falling over you is the news of the day.

 

…I could use a reliable filter to take away the creases and the gray.

 

…A man in my shoes might be tempted to run, if only he could.

 

…“And all the papers lied tonight.”

 

…My son once said, “You can never hear, ‘I’m proud of you’ enough,” so I’m working on it.

 

…What hurts the most in us can be anybody’s business.

 

…Had a staring contest with the moon last night. Guess who won?

 

…If ever there was one, now is not the time to fall apart.

 

…I wouldn’t call myself a pessimist. I wouldn’t call myself anything.

 

…“If you drift too far, I’ll leave a light on for you.”

 

…If you want to get someone’s attention, try listening, or else whisper.

 

…It took me forever to write Wednesday’s piece, of which there are half a dozen versions.  What was once merely the same as breathing for me has now turned into something akin to an asthma attack. 

 

…Sometimes I throw a game or two, just to give the algorithms false hope.

 

…In a couple of hours, I’ll be on a train heading south. It’s a beautiful ride, hugging the ocean coast most of the way. Unlike air travel, no one looks you in the eye on a train, and if anyone speaks at all, they do so in hushed tones.

If you’re the type, say a prayer for me. I’ll need it/them.

 

…I’ll leave you with these two things to think about on the weekend…

 

…Anthony Bourdain (sexiest thing you can do on a date)...

“...you learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together. If your date makes the experience uptight and restrictive, well, the sex is going to be horrible too. ...I don't have much patience for people who are self-conscious about the act of eating, and it irritates me when someone denies themselves the pleasure of a bloody hunk of steak or a pungent French cheese because of some outdated nonsense about what's appropriate or attractive. Stop worrying about how your breath's going to smell, whether there's beurre blanc on your face, or whether ordering the braised pork belly will make you look fat. Eating with abandon couldn't be more of a turn-on: it shows that you're comfortable with yourself.

A perfect date is with a person who eats without fear, prejudice, or concerns about his or her appearance. I remember one of my first dates with my wife (Ottavia): She ordered a six-pound lobster. I sat there, enraptured, watching her suck every bit of meat from it—she got a standing ovation from the floor staff. She's the kind of woman who will order filet mignon as an appetizer followed by a T-bone steak. Her fearless, open-minded approach to food is completely alluring. For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that. It's about exploration and taste. And kissing after dinner. And maybe there's a little wine and curry on your breath...and that's nice.”

 

…"I'm inspired by everybody, I don't tend to be a negative person towards anyone, because for any kind of success there has to be a certain amount of discipline and hard work that goes into being successful. So even if you're not liking what they're making, you gotta respect what they did to get there. That's been my ethic, I think one of my favorite quotes is from Michael Jackson, and he said 'a great artist shouldn't have to put another artist down,' I think that always stuck in my head. You can't think the same way every day, but you can have a new approach to things, and a clean approach to new ideas." Harif Guzman

 

 —BLESS THE BEASTS AND THE CHILDREN

 

The Ventriloquist’s Dummy

 

For a moment 

she was perfect 

until she wasn’t 

the doctor not exactly 

saying Downs 

though we knew 

when she grinned 

and you blanched 

before eventually finding

the type of parents who 

take in kids like this

 

So now I 

sit on your left leg 

same as every night

your hairy hand

a brand 

on my spine 

jerking a string 

that’s not there

while I wear 

a mouthful of 

broke-off teeth

turned to chalk 

the choking kind

every unsaid word 

a curdled scream 

neither of us can hear

—GRAVITY IS WORKING AGAINST ME

 

                                                            

     Candy Hearts

         

         We were the fat kids, Gordie and I, hunched beneath the musty-smelling table cloth, passing miniature candy hearts back and forth, a flashlight for our guide.  A few days earlier there had been a funeral in this chapel and for all I knew the casket might have sat where we were now hiding.  It certainly smelled of formaldehyde, of bug collections and Bactine, but it might have just been bad perfume.

         Above us new arrivals signed the guest book.  We could hear them scribbling their names, could hear their growling stomachs and whispers.  

“I can’t believe this is actually going to happen.”

         “I know.  How many guys do you imagine she’s slept with?”

         “Has to be hundreds.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she did the priest.”

         They were talking about the bride-to-be, my sister and, to his credit, Gordie didn’t say a word, he just nibbled on his candy like a dutiful rodent.  The flashlight bisected his face, showing swirls of peach fuzz, flabby cheeks and a dimple burrowed to China.  

We were careful to whisper when we spoke.  

         “This one says, ‘U R My Sunshine,’ but it’s pink.”

         “So?”

         “The sun’s not pink.”

         I wanted to slug him but there wasn’t room for proper leverage, plus we’d be found out, plus there was the issue of Ms. Colson, my therapist.  Ms. Colson favored soft shades of purple and she surrounded herself in it—lipstick, eye shadow, nail polish, handbag, shoes, cushions and drapes.  She kept a color wheel in her lap as she quizzed me, twirling it absentmindedly.  She always wanted information about the latest hole in my bedroom wall and when I wouldn’t give it, she’d say things like, “If your fist weren’t a fist, Jeffrey, what would you imagine it as?  Hmm?  What other appendage?”  When I said, “A penis,” she stiffened and began to weep, which was when I knew she was the real crackpot.

         “You think she’ll be wearing white?”

         “Hopefully off-white.  Like, off-off-white.  Something in the very not-quite-right-white shade.”

         “I hear she’s pregnant.”

         “I hear it might be her father’s.”

         “What?  Really?”

         You pee on a stick and it turns either one of two colors.  My sister’s stick turned pink.  At the top was a smiley face and I wondered if it had always been there, before the splash of urine, or if not, then how did the stick know she was pregnant and why in the world would it think she’d be happy, carrying a mutant baby like that?  As far as I could tell, my sister was miserable.  She always had been, but now she was the kind of miserable that is contagious, that runs into everyone else’s laundry bleeding like madras.

Gordie, shifted his thick thighs and winced.  “My kneecap’s asleep.”

         “Shh, not so loud,” I said.

         “These are my brother’s dress pants.  They feel like pantyhose, they’re so tight.”

         “Suck it up.”

         “Hey, this one says, ‘Merry XMas.’  They got the wrong holiday.  How about that?”

         “Are you retarded?”

         “I don’t think so.”

         I heard an organ strike a sonorous note, heard door hinges squeal closed, and the stilted sound of a hundred shoe heels taking a stand in the pew aisles.

I heard my stepbrother, Rogan, yell my name a half dozen times as he scoured the vestibule area.  After a brief search, he dropped a fat F-bomb about me and said, “You ruin everything.  I hope you die.”

Gordie’s head twitched, his eyes, too.  He was getting all this.  He wasn’t so dumb.  “This is a good one,” he said, holding up a lime-colored heart, ‘Have My Baby.’”

“That’s ‘Be My Baby.’”

“Nah huh, look.  It’s ‘Have—“

Then I did hit him, probably too hard.  He rubbed his arm and mumbled something.

I told him I was sorry.  “I mean.  I am,” I said.

“It’s okay.”

“Forgive and forget?”

“Sure.”

I recognized the song that played.  It was the same creepy, Phantom of the Opera-type number that old lady had played two nights prior at the rehearsal dinner.

“You think you’ll ever get married?” Gordie asked.

“Are you nuts?”

Gordie thought for a moment.  He took every one of my questions seriously.  “I don’t think I am.  I’m weird and a little chubby, but not crazy.”

“Let’s go,” I said, pushing my head through the table covering.  A cramp bit my calf like a crocodile.

Gordie swore, “Damn.”  The crystal dish that had contained all the candy hearts was empty.  He licked his thumb and dragged it across the thin coating of pastel sugar dust, then sucked it off.

“Come on.  What’re you going to do, eat that glass bowl?”

“Where’re we going?”

“Somewhere.”

“You’re going to be in a lot of trouble if you miss your sister’s wedding.”

I hobbled a few steps, working the horse bite out of my leg.  “You don’t have to come.”

I punched the door open so hard it echoed across the vestibule.

I thought about my sister and Terry exchanging their handwritten vows and how pretty my sister would look, how Terry’s knees would wobble, him nervous as hell, chewing on the consequences.

I left the church and said a vow myself—that I wouldn’t permit myself to think about love, or if I did it couldn’t be anything angry or negative.  I was of course distrustful of love, how it proposed to be the truth but was more or less the shield people threw around themselves when they were lonely or in trouble.  What I did respect, however, was the silken paleness of the sky overhead, blue bordering on periwinkle.  “Isn’t that something?” I said to myself.

“Here’s one, says, ‘Keep it real’,” Gordie said.

As I turned, he was pulling fabric from his groin.  “What?” he asked.  “Why’re you smiling?”

“I wish I knew,” I said.  But I did know.  Or so I thought.

            

—LIKE A TRAIN FULL OF GASOLINE

  

 

 

Patterson

 

 

It’s July and the spiders are back, half a dozen of the walnut-sized things dangling from my office window, their broken webs scattered across the panes like shredded wedding veils.

Mother’s face slides over the glass, a bobbing hologram looking for purchase, huffing and puffing theatrically, blowing raspberries, anything to catch my attention.

Don’t you have better things to do? I think but don’t say, though mother picks this up telepathically, answering, “Take a peek, Patterson. I’m deader than a doornail. I don’t have a fucking thing going on.”

“Living Mom” would never drop an F bomb, but “Ghost Mother” has the vocab of a crusty barfly, not to mention the same dead-end ennui.

“Can’t you see I’m working?” I say aloud, tapping out nonsense on my keyboard that might as well be Russian or Farsi.

“Yeah? Well, your last three stories sucked ass,” Mom says, her cheeks plump as two scoops of pistachio gelato. “Get out of your own goddamn head and write something true and brilliant for once.”

“Don’t you think that’s what I’m trying to do?”

“Maybe start by dropping the fucking adverbs already,” Mom says. “They’re all over your writing, like suppositories languishing in that cramped part of the colon that hurts.”

Mother started visiting me a few months after my wife left, taking along the bulk of our nicked-up, inflatable IKEA furniture, but thankfully leaving behind Stevie Nicks, the mutt I’d rescued some years ago. Stevie’s barking has become incessant every time Mom shows up and when I explain this to my therapist, all he does is sigh into his sleeve and write me a note for another script.

“Okay, what is it?” I say to Mom’s moon-face, which is decidedly wider than when she was alive, like a Denny’s Deluxe pancake or personal pan pizza.

Mother spits air. “Can’t you tell? I’m bored to death.”

Dead or not, that’s as close as Mom comes to humor, or explaining herself.

“Why don’t you go haunt Oscar (my brother) or Cheryl (my younger sister with the too-short left elbow and eating disorder) or Uncle Leeroy (my uncle), or what about that school bus driver who ran over the cat in second grade and just kept going?”

“Please. You always hated cats. Plus, you never loved me. Just admit it.”

“We’ve been through this. My love for you was timestamped and dutiful, documented by my presence at your funeral, as well as all of these idiotic conversations we’ve had since you’ve died.”

I never asked Mom why she killed herself. Maybe I was too afraid of the answer, thinking it might have been because of me—

“It wasn’t you.”

--or something I did or didn’t do.

“If I’d kept track of all of your fuckups, I’d probably be in a different level of Hell right now.”

I’m tapped for things to say, so I spew, sing-songy, “You were always a drama queen.”

“Blame the drama, not your Momma.”

“You’re not funny. Not even a bit,” I say, chewing my inside lip so I don’t chuckle.

“Why won’t you ever ask me something serious? Huh?  The Dead know things you guys don’t,” Mom says, shimming fingers across her cheeks while attempting a ghoulish falsetto. 

I don’t know why, but I stare at her facsimile as if it’s the real thing, my mother’s face, wobbly, swaying uncertainly among the panes where the creepy spiders drop, weave and confirm their reputations as industrious fellows.

“Okay, okay,” I say, inhaling until I’m almost hollow again. “Soo, why did Lisa leave me?”

(Lisa was my wife of 34 years. Sex to her was as important as drinking half your bodyweight in water, eating fatty fish once a week, planking and Kegels.)

“You already know that answer.”

A latent, bottled-up fear burps into my conscientiousness. “Wait, you didn’t, like, ever watch Lisa and I have sex, did you?” 

“Sex?” Mom says, her face waxed and dusty, like a rubbed-out coin. “Well, you never had any. Not towards the end,” Mother says, fanning the air above her dead head while straightening her bangs. “Isn’t that why she scrabbled off?”

When I was a kid, we played Scrabble, RISK, Go Shit, and Parcheesi. Afterward, I would always shadowbox myself in the garage and lift weights until I puked. 

 “Mom, I’m tired already. Say something useful, or just go away.”

Mother plucks a gray hair, holds it up to the window glare before saying, “Um, okay, but well, you know, maybe, it’s not something you really want to hear.”

“All you did was protect me as a kid. Bandage me when I got a scrape. Plug my ears during scary movies. Change my name from Peter to Patterson after all of the dopey kids in grade school realized Peter was a euphemism for penis—”

“But I wasn’t there, not when I should have been. I didn’t believe you.”

The shift in Mother’s tenor has me arching my back, bending over in my office chair. Ghost Mom’s shown up plenty before, but never like this, with such moxie.

“Your father, what he did to you—”

“No, Mom.”

“—I needed to believe you, and I didn’t.”

“No more.”

“That’s been all on me, all this time.”

I slap the keyboard like Ta-Dum, as if it’s finally over now, which it never is, of course.

“Let’s switch subjects,” I say.

“No child deserves that.”

“Mother!”

“They don’t. No way in hell they do.”

Hearing her say the words, even if they’re ghost words, sinks a blade.

“That was a long time ago,” I say, stupidly.

 “Don’t be so fucking stupid,” Mom says. “Before Wife, Life, you have to find a therapist, and do the work.”

“So, like you?” 

Mother chortles, really guffaws, shattering the supposed-to-be-already-shattered. 

“I’d just start at the beginning,” Mom says, steadfast and dutiful some kind of instructor now. ”If I were you, I’d be honest. I’d write honestly and know people would believe me.”

—PEOPLE SAY YOU’RE THE LUCKIEST MAN. YOU’RE NOT GOING TO WIN, BUT YOU’RE THE LUCKIEST MAN

  

…Your connection is unstable.

 

…It’s beautiful, or it’s luck, but either way it’s yours.

 

--“Ever think how all the good shit’s gone?”

--“That’s why you have to make sure to keep the good shit around.”

—The Bear 

 

…Some people respond well to tough love and, well, some people don’t.

 

…Life catches up to you at some point.

 

…“You don’t leave a room imagining defeat. You think you’re going to make it every time.” Nyad

 

…I’m so superstitious that I don’t even believe I am.

 

…Eyes on the prize, and all that.

 

…All I want to know is are you with me?

 

…Call me a boring dope, but I could spend the whole night watching “Forensic Files” and I’d be a happy clam (are clams really happy?)

 

…There are a lot of times when it’s better to be wrong than right.

 

…Sometimes when you need them most, those little poems are there to save your life.

 

…If you love it, but no one else cares, just do it anyway.

 

…Getting people to open up can be a little tricky.

 

…Why am I always the last to know these things?

 

…Phone conversations should be something you just have and not have to think too much about what you’re saying, otherwise something is awry.

 

…I spent hours cleaning up my office yesterday. Who let’s their workspace become a junkyard? Yeah, me. 

There were stacks and stacks of notes and story-starts on folded-in-half sheets of paper. I couldn’t remember writing 75 percent of it, and at least half was absolute gibberish.

 

…I’ve come to learn that it’s important to feel uncomfortable sometimes.

 

…“Everything has a voice. You just have to listen.” All The Light We Cannot See 

 

…I was laughing so hard on the phone the other night that I had no option other than to hang up. First time that’s ever happened.

 

 …I’m just working in my little corner of the ring.

 

…I’m not in a hurry and I hope you aren’t either.

 

…Why are you smiling?

 

…The question I had to ask myself was: How long can you live like this?

 

…Imagination is a little like practical magic. It can save you from gloom and doom.

 

…“The lesser of two evils is still evil.” Lessons in Chemistry

 

…As weird as it seems, I totally get the idea of where you’re going with it.

 

…What you don’t hold close, you lose, and it’s no one’s fault but your own.

 

…“Would have” “Could have”—half the story of life.

 

…Don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do.

 

…Sometimes it’s hard to know what the rules are anymore.

 

…No one ever really wins a fight.

 

…Being told to “Fuck off” is usually a bad sign.

 

…“It’ll be a while,” sure, but what’s a while mean to you? 

 

…All these years and I just learned that garrote is pronounced ga-rot and not ga-wrote.

 

…“persona” is the Greek word for mask.

 

…I may or may not have been…

 

…“I always think of poetry as living.” Padraig O Tuama

 

…On the phone, my dad would always close by saying, “It’s okay, you’ll come see me when I’m dead.” I saw him plenty before that, but he was correct to a degree. I always wondered, though, if he knew the highways went two ways.

 

…If you listen closely enough—which I’m doing right now—the walls will tell you story after story.

 

…“I love being afraid with you.” Beauty and the Beast

 

…I’m sorry I didn’t wait a few lines longer.

 

…I know the last part now.

 

…You’ll tell me when to panic, right?