Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.
1. Spit it into her voicemail, a little slurred and sounding like the shot whiskey you downed for courage. Feel as ashamed as you do walking into work in last night’s clothes. Wake up cringing for days, waiting for her to mention it.
2. Sigh it into her mouth, wedged in between teeth and tongues. Don’t even let your lips move when you say it, ever so lightly, into the air. Maybe it was just an exhalation of ecstasy.
3. Buy her flowers. Buy her chocolate. Buy her a teddy bear, because that’s what every romantic comedy has taught you. Take her out to a nice restaurant where neither of you feel comfortable and spend the whole night clearing your throat and tugging at your tie. Feel like your actions are more suited to a proposal than the simple confession of something you’ve always known.
4. Whisper it into her hair in the middle of the night, after you’ve counted the space between her breaths and are certain she’s asleep. Shut your eyes quickly when she shifts toward you in askance. Maybe you were just sleep whispering.
5. Blurt it out in the middle of an impromptu dance party in the kitchen, as clumsy as your two left feet. When time seems to freeze, hastily tack on “in that shirt” or “when you make your award-winning meatballs” or, if you are feeling particularly brave, “when we do this.” Resume dancing and pretend you don’t feel her eyes on you the rest of the night.
6. Write her a letter in which the amount of circumnavigating and angst could rival Mr. Darcy’s. Debate where to leave it all day – on her pillow? In her coat pocket? Throw it away in frustration, conveniently leaving it face up in the trashcan, her name scrawled on the front in your sloppy handwriting. Let her wonder if you meant it.
7. Wait until something terrible has happened and you can’t not tell her anymore. Wait until she almost gets hit by a car crossing Wabash against the light and after you are done cursing at the shit-for-brains cab drivers in this city, realize you are actually just terrified of living without her. Tell her with your hands shaking.
8. Say it deliberately, your tongue a springboard for every syllable. Over coffee, brushing your teeth side-by-side, as you turn off the light to go to sleep – it doesn’t matter where. Do not adorn it with extra words like “I think” or “I might.” Do not sigh heavily as if admitting it were a burden instead of the most joyous thing you’ve ever done. Look her in the eyes and pray, heart thumping wildly, that she will turn to you and say, “I love you too.”
8 Ways To Say I Love You By R. MCKINLEY (via metaphorically)
This is cute and a little bit gross but then it said crossing Wabash and then my heart popped.
(Source: obdormio)
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.
Kurt Vonnegut
America, where are your credentials?
- Anne Sexton, The Firebombers
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Steve Jobs (via poetdreamer)
This, plus a shitty economy, encourages my literary dreams.
Also, the intoxicants do too.
Growing facial hair duing a time when it is not the late 19th century is really a man’s way of saying to the world ‘I am no longer part of civilization. I am going insane. Deal with it.’ Growing a beard or a mustache or whatever you’re capable of sprouting on your face is when a person says, for better or worse, I’m not saying that this is a bold manuever, I’m not saying this is a good thing to do, but it’s basically telling your grandmother to shut up and go home. And someone who is afraid to have their photo taken with their bad beard because of what grandma might say? Someone who then grows another beard and then shaves it the moment a child teases him…is not someone who should be growing a beard at all.
John Hodgman, on beards, yet again. (via hollenius)
Well, we’ve had a good time tonight, considering we’re all going to die someday.
Steve Martin, closing out a night of stand-up. (via)
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Mark Twain (via insaneisonlyanidea)
