‘“It’s the little cruelties that get you,” she told him. “Never the big hurts, the pains you can point to, and say, ‘Oh, I see this bruise,’ but the wounds that you can’t even tell are there until one day you are eating a bowl of fennel soup or sunbathing on the deck of the pool and you can’t move, you can’t do anything, because you think, Well, something is dead in me, what has been done to me, and why did I allow this to happen? And now, and now, and now…”’
“Well, of course I’ve tried lavender. And pulling my memory out, ribbonlike and dripping. And shrieking into my pillow. And writing the poems. And making more friends. And baking warm brown cookies. And therapy. And intimacy. And pictures of rainbows. And all of the movies about lovers and the terrible things they do to each other. And watching the ones in other languages. And leaving the subtitles off. And listening to the language. And forgetting my name. And feeling the dirt on my skin. And screaming in the shower. And changing my shampoo. And living alone. And cutting my hair. And buying a turtle. And petting the cat. And traveling. And writing more poems. And touching a different body. And digging a grave. And digging a grave. Of course, I’ve tried it. Of course I have.”
…oh, I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I’d get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don’t want it any more, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow’s sky.
