Friday, December 26, 2008

Romance by Miranda July


"I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again. The day felt like a birthday, our first, and we ourselves were the gifts, to be opened again and again.
...we pressed our legs against each other's legs, and these, too, were radically different sizes, and our curiosity was blossoming like a rose, we wanted to know, we really wanted to know, all the unknowable things about each other and how we were the same and how we were different, if we even were, maybe nobody is. We wanted to strike lightning in dark waters, to see, if only for a second, the entire world that lives down there, the ten millions species in amazing colors and patterns; show us life, now. We pressed our stomachs and lips together, and these too, were different sizes, but my lips were roughly the same size as her ear, and her arm, when wrapped around my waist, felt long and, more important, was warm.
We grew still and stared at each other. It seemed incredibly dangerous to look into each other's eyes, but we were doing it. For how long can you behold another person? Before you have to think of yourself again, like dipping the brush back in for more ink. For a long time; you didn't need to get more ink, there was no reason to get anything else, because she was as good as me, she lived on earth like me, suffered as I did. It was she who looked away and pulled the sheet to her chin."

One of the standout paragraphs from Miranda July's collection of short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You. I just finished the book and these past days it's fit perfectly into my melancholy mood.

1 comment:

AWP said...

how absolutely beautiful, my dear. hope you are feeling better. let's talk soon. mexico was amaaaazing and now it's gone, hopefully just until next time. love,a