Little Weirds

by Jenny Slate

My vulnerability is natural and permissible and beautiful to me, and it should remind you of your responsibility to behave like a friend to me and the world.

I’m stuck here in a cycle and I am getting older but I am not growing up and my heart is getting soft dark spots on it like a fruit that has gone bad or is soft because too many hands have squeezed it

I am supposed to be touched. I can’t wait to find the person who will come into the kitchen just to smell my neck and get behind me and hug me and breathe me in and make me turn around and make me kiss his face and put my hands in his hair even with my soapy dishwater drips. I am a lovely woman. Who will come into my kitchen and be hungry for me?

As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love.

The reason I think that it will be hard to meet someone who I am actually interested in is that I cannot stand these preliminary moments when you can’t deeply know each other and be together forever.