We Need To Talk

Anne Hallward On Breaking Our Silence And Overcoming Shame

We develop courage by coming out of hiding, coming out of the closet, and there are thousands of closets.

Hello, Goodbye

You want to write back, He died. You want your hurt to be the world’s hurt. This pain is what was born tonight. It’s a palpable, physical thing, an object of infinite dimension that can be looked at from many angles, held closely or at a distance, and always there is some new aspect of the sorrow.

Nomads

Einstein said that time moves at different rates throughout the universe. He must have been to Mexico, where time not only moves slower but has an altogether different texture and flavor than American time.

Leaving Austin

It seems she was surprised to hear from me. “Marion,” she wrote back a week later, “I kinda liked you when I met you, and then I learned to love you, but now you’re just the skank that fucked my man when I was struggling to make a family.”

The Only One She Told

You had the face of a man who couldn’t help understanding everything — all of it, the whole pathetic, tragic human thing — and that draws people in. To me you were a magnet of kindness.

You

Early on I thought about wiping your memory. I might as well admit this to you now. I thought maybe if you stopped believing you were something else on the inside, then you wouldn’t be sad anymore. And you wouldn’t change. This was before your body really began to transform.

The Making

We made eyes across the room. We made each other’s acquaintance, whatever that means. I made a move, you made a face. We made out anyway. We made bad pottery, we made bad jokes.

What To Look For In A Horse

Get a horse with a little sass. One who will try / to buck you if she knows you’ve been drinking / too much.