The last time I saw him he made me promise not to get emotional. Or, at least, I guess that’s what he made me promise. His phrasing was a bit more elusive than that. “Just fucking?” he texted, a few hours before. “Whatever you say, Bassi,” I texted back. See that? I used his last […]
It started with a kiss. Not a simple goodnight kiss, or a clumsy first kiss. It started with a street corner on which he stood, a parking spot into which I pulled, a car door through which he entered. It started with my body turning towards his, from my place behind the steering wheel. It […]
On Thursday I run into Jeff at the coffee shop. “Hello Delilah,” he mumbles unenthusiastically, from a stool behind the door. Which he didn’t have to do, because I would never have noticed him there. I take it as a reluctant sign that I am supposed to greet him back. Being polite, I do what […]
So I am poolside with my best ex, laughing about that time he blackened my eye. Reflected in his sunglasses, my son floats casually by on an inner tube. I turn to appreciate it just in time to see a beautiful dive bomb executed by my ex’s son, which attempts to sink my son completely. […]
Lovey is twelve and living with her substitute family the day her period comes. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. “Should we cancel the trip to the river?” Delilah, her substitute mother, asks. “Are you feeling blue?” Lovey is occasionally morose and Delilah has developed a regimen for it, in which she […]
because. because. because. because the momentum was there. and so was the alcohol. and so was the sense of complete despair and the conviction that nothing made a wrench of a difference, anyway. i don’t remember those days much anymore. but when we first started hanging out again, it all came stampeding back to me […]
There are, I believe, two diametrically opposed elements that narrate our desire to keep coming back to each other. One is our not even remotely knowing each other. And the other is knowing each other so completely. He’s allowed one overnight visit every four to six weeks. Today he showed up after an absence of […]
“I’ll never spend the night,” she told you from the beginning. “I’d avoid making commitments to never, if I were you.” That was two or three months ago. Now she sits on the edge of your bed, putting on her stockings, talking nonstop about matters of zero consequence. An attempt to smooth over the fact that […]
When your father is a professional gambler, you learn from a young age to disassociate from people and regard them as nothing more than the sum of their tells. This can be a very lonely world for you, especially as a child. But it’s no harder than you allow it to be. As far as […]
my delusions 