Of Mice and Men, Lies and Lollipops
“God damn you, Anna! Such a rascal!” She feigned disgust, contorting the smooth lines of her face into a mock sneer. Mocking Tom. “So tell me then,” she gushed insincerely, gesticulating like a southern beauty queen, hands clutching her heart, “What do you love about him?”
“You’re putting words into my mouth, ellem.” I snapped the thin hairbands on my wrist against my skin. I heard it was something people did to stop compulsive behaviors. Maybe mine was falling. Falling in love, falling in lust.
I think I feel things far too much, not all of the time, but when I do it’s like travelling through space at the speed of light and it hits hard enough to bruise. When I love a person or a place or a thing I just can’t do it in small amounts, I love whatever it is so much that I feel like I could spontaneously combust. Starbursts in my head, raw nerves in my heart, electricity in my stomach. It’s desperate and sad and heartbreaking and it’s there. It’s the difference between thinking and feeling, and it is fiercer than a lion.
“Then just tell me what’s in your heart.”
I had to think about that one, to clutch my chest and pull out the brambles of tangled veins and bones and brains and thoughts that clutter my nervous system. There’s a thin line between what I feel in my heart and what’s happening in my head and sometimes I can’t distinguish where it ends.
“I just wish he didn’t look so sad.”
