Ức tích

“All summer I’ve been watching your calves as they meet the backs of your knees that you give me to smooth with cool Noxzema cream from that blue expired jar.”

“I’m with you. No matter what else you have in your head I’m with you and I love you.”

I will be among, in a way I haven’t been before. It’s a new thing to be among: all my life I’d thought my only choice was to be extraordinary, as if to compensate for some lack. There is freedom in failure; I know that—how could I think otherwise after living with the body’s collective breakdown? Maybe it’s art enough to try to build a life against that breakdown. Maybe that’s enough.

“Like summer thunderstorms you put the ecstasy back in my sadness.”