Posts tagged ‘Loss’
Excerpt from “Who Wants to Marry a Savant?”
My heart is the size of a whale—not a whale’s heart—an actual whale.
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Excerpt from “Who Wants to Marry a Savant?”
As he drove us to Aberdeen to meet a potential client, Carl philosophized: “The opposite of love isn’t hate, Angie.”
“Well, duh. I know that. But what is the opposite of love? I’ve thought about this often without coming close to an answer. It isn’t hate or even lust or rage or cruelty. What the fuck is it?!” I enjoyed sprinkling expletives into our dialogue because, as a Mormon, Carl would always squirm at least a little. At the time, I reveled in the fact that I wielded that kind of power over a man who’d never fuck me.
“Apathy.” Carl sighed. “When she told me she wanted a divorce, Karen explained she had simply ‘fallen out of love’ with me. Everyone thinks she was cheating, but it wasn’t that at all. She didn’t necessarily want to have sex with someone else. She just didn’t ever want to make love to me again.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.” What could I say? He hit the nail on the head: the opposite of love is apathy.
Carl’s profound insight forced me into introspection. I had endured the entire gamut of emotions in my current relationship, save for one. I was utterly incapable of feeling indifferent toward him. I would always be in love with him.
It suddenly made sense why he’d inspired both the meanest and sweetest poems I’d ever written.
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Letter to My Rapist (Part I)
In the aftermath of Brock Turner’s heinous crimes and Judge Aaron Persky’s revictimization of Emily Doe, a Yale alumna is inspired to communicate with her rapist.
Excerpt from “Safe Mode”
The opposite of numb (but perhaps with the same result), I plunged so deeply into depression I couldn’t:
drive myself home
pick up a fork
wash my hair
erase my smeared makeup
brush my teeth
swallow 150 mg of relief
pack a bowl
check Facebook
cry
pray
masturbate.
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Double Back Flip on Crappy Diving Board with Torn Meniscus
“Me doing a double back flip with a torn [meniscus] on a crappy diving board at Turner Falls in Oklahoma.”
-Alex Davis, July 28, 2008
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Excerpt from “Safe Mode”
Like a tulip shoved under a giant heat lamp, my upper body wilts beneath yet another wave of depression and grief. More than five years have passed since Lisa’s death, but I’ve become increasingly unable to withstand her absence.
I spend the next six hours coding, hoping this attempt to shed the blues (so blue it’s black) may result in productivity. I find myself humming a tune the oldies station hasn’t played in years:
Please lock me away
And don’t allow the day
Here inside, where I hide with my loneliness
I don’t care what they say, I won’t stay
In a world without love
The Lollygabber 
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