Fish

"Look, I'm driving right now, so how about I call you back?"

"Why would you even say something like that?"

"I don't know. There's something wrong with me."

"It's not true."

"I know."

"But you had to tell them...why? It makes no sense."

"Your name came up and I just said it. I'm real sorry, really real sorry. Here... I'm pulling over... Okay, I'm off the road now. You know if I could take it back I would."

"It's not like you would even know."

"I know, really, really sorry, but that's the last time I'm going to apologize okay."

"What was it verbatim?"

"I said, 'You have got the fattest fucking fish in your aquarium that I have ever seen.' Or something real close to that."

"That's not what Mike said, you said."

"What can I do, there's nothing I can do about it now."

"God you've ruined me."

"I know. You're Welcome."

Soft

"Don't you ever miss it? Don't you ever miss the intimacy part, the sometimes softness? Like when your doing something, like the dishes and they come up from behind and just wrap their arms around you. You know, immobilizing your arms in a way. In a way just saying "You've done enough." That kind of non-verbal acceptance. Don't you miss that? That kind of compassion. Intimacy, you know?"

"Of course, I know what I'm giving up."

Clean Your Teeth, Please

“I will spit directly into your eye. I will pin you down and pry open your eyelids. I will. Honest. And then I’ll spit, right directly on your eyeball.”

This is Melinda, this is how she talks to me when I say stuff like, ‘No.’

When she asks a question like, “Can you please put your toothbrush back in the holder after you use it, or at least set it down with the bristles up, Please?”

And then I say, “No.”

And then she says she’s going to spit on my eyeball if I don’t.
But then that’s Melinda—Violent.

But First, Say Something BIG

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