Something that became unexpectedly important was where I slept afterwards. A hotel room (smoking) with its paneled elevator, 3am, on the phone with my parents. A day spent in a friend’s studio apartment while she went to the craft mart: I gasped numbly into my fists. The spare room in another apartment during those weeks [...]
Breaking up with someone throws your entire apology meter off. You’re perpetually sorry. You’re perpetually waiting to hear he’s sorry. And as the two of you grow apart, communicating less by the month, you begin storing your sorrys, like some sad camel, only to find them spilling over and out of your mouth at unexpected [...]
Four months ago I thought I’d rent a car and disappear into the night: pack my things and drug the cat and drive halfway across the country to my home city, where I belonged. There’d be no need to tell anyone, I thought, retarded with the novelty of grief. Not my friends. Not my recently-exed. [...]
It’s never how you think it’s going to be.
The night before I left I entered an elevator. I. Flying upwards into space or pitching downwards, it’s all the same Midway each dream the doors open: Everything stops. Suddenly the decision must be made: do I get out? Step freely into nothingness? Or remain, blind to the rushing air the elevator / my protector [...]