All the Dangerous Things

I had come to think of him as a library book, entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn't mine, I couldn't scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn't leave my mark on him in any discernable way.

Maybe you need to stop retracing your footsteps. Maybe you need to try a new path.

The truth is, people love violence—from a distance, that is. Anyone who disagrees is either in denial or hiding something.

But aren’t all of our lives just stories we tell ourselves? Stories we try to craft so perfectly and cast out into the world? Stories that become so vivid, so real, that eventually we start to believe them, too?

But that’s the thing about grief: There is no manual for it. There is no checklist outlining the optimal way to move through it and move on.

People tend to stash their dirtiest secrets in the most common of places.

And some of these people have secrets. All of them do, really. But some of them have the real ones, the messy ones. The deep, dark, shadowy ones that lurk just beneath the skin, traveling through their veins and spreading like a sickness. Dividing, multiplying, then dividing again. I wonder which ones they are: the ones with the kinds of secrets that touch every organ and render them rotten. The kinds of secrets that will eat them alive from the inside out.

it hit me like a truck: It’s because mothers—and, honestly, women in general—are conditioned from birth to feel guilty about something. We always think things are our fault. We always feel the need to apologize: For being too much or too little. Too loud or too quiet. Too driven or too content.

Sometimes, the mind is just stronger than our attempts to override it.

After all, the violence always comes to us in ways we could never expect: quickly, quietly. Masked as something else. Ben has always known that you don’t have to pull the trigger to get away with murder—sometimes, all you need to do is load the gun and let it go off on its own.

At the time, it reminded me of the stars: how two can collide and fuse into one—bigger, brighter, stronger than before. But what Ididn’t know then was that when they collide too fast, they don’t fuse at all. Instead, they explode, evaporating into nothing.

They don’t want to get too uncomfortable. They don’t want to actually live through what I’ve lived through, every ugly moment. They just want a taste. They want enough for their curiosity to be satiated—but if it gets too bitter or too salty or too real, they’ll smack their lips and leave dissatisfied. And we don’t want that. The truth is, people love violence—from a distance, that is. Anyone who disagrees is either in denial or hiding something.

I learned fairly quickly that when people asked how I was doing, how I was holding up, they didn’t actually want an answer—not a real one, anyway—so I simply ignored that little needle prick that stuck in my jaw, the threat of impending tears, and plastered on a smile, giving them the answer I knew they expected: that everything was good, everything was fine. In fact, no. Everything was perfect.

I remember picking it up, feeling the familiar well of tears erupt at the thought of losing yet another person in my life that I loved.

should have seen this coming. I’m a storyteller myself, after all, and a storyteller never goes into a story without actually knowing the story. Without having an idea of what it is you want to tell. You don’t go in blind, searching for answers. You have the answers—your answers, at least; the answers you want—and you go in searching for proof.

Because that's the thing with the audience, the thing I learned long ago. They don't want to get *too* uncomfortable. They don't want to actually live through what I've lived through, every ugly moment. They just want a taste.

but emotions and feelings and all those other sticky subjects were simply buried beneath piles of money and presents until they disappeared altogether.

Nobody in here could possibly imagine what I’ve just spent my day doing: recounting the most painful moment of my life for the enjoyment of strangers. I have a speech now. A speech that I recite with absolute detachment, engineered in just the right way.