Lust & Wonder

by Augusten Burroughs

Old Chinese men were playing cards and smoking, and there were several dogs, all with fur that had been petted smooth over many years.

I could find a way to be with him again, even if only through the rereading of his e-mails. It was like being famished and knowing that only the box from the frozen dinner remained, the picture of the meal and not the meal itself. I could lick the glossy cardboard.

He pointed out my strange yet consistent capitalization of words like Cake, Penis, Hostage, Meat, Police, and Gay—all things that made me excited and anxious, which seemed embarrassingly clear with each one he circled.

It made the top of my head blow off to think about it, which is exactly what Emily Dickinson said can happen when you think about heavy shit.

Dennis asked, “Do you enjoy jazz? Because I love it, and I know of a place downtown where we could go.” “And then we can have broken glass and arsenic for dinner!” I felt like replying, because I barely tolerated jazz when I encountered it in elevators or dental offices.

One night, we sat on a long green bench in Central Park and talked until it was dark and the air throbbed with crickets.

I mentally rolled up my sleeves. I thought wearily, Is it always going to be like this with him? He was like a vending machine that swallowed my change and wouldn’t give me my fucking peanut M&M’s.

It’s true, I thought. We should become friends with the man. Because like a vampire, I wanted to suck the charisma from his veins.

The narrow strip of dirt and weeds that separated my house from the street was in fact a Rorschach test for the rest of the nosy neighborhood, who apparently viewed it as an actual lawn—one I was expected to care about and maintain.

his wobbly bookcase threatened to fall over onto the floor like a drunk.

realized that when I really gave myself actual no-strings-attached permission to drink on vacation, I just didn’t want to. The idea, in fact, made me vaguely queasy, as though hearing a rodent scramble from within the wall.

In the kitchen, then, I felt the weight of our incompatibility. A sense that a split was inevitable. But again, the other side. That people do live like that.

I laughed, but then when I looked at his face, I saw he was enraged. He wasn’t being funny; he was being borderline personality disorder-ish.

deep inside the suicidal impulse, when you cut it open and look at the pit, you see faith, which is like hope without the question mark.

I was without that tiny hook you feel each day, the one that makes you change the sheets or go to work or feed the baby or eat. So while I wasn’t even remotely suicidal, I was now the easiest of targets.

I’d watched him cycle through a couple of relationships while I myself met somebody and decided to fall in love and create a stable life for myself. Yeah, I did that. I decided to fall in love. God sees that remark, and he circles it with his big red felt pen, chuckling.

I was astounded that such a magnitude of physical motion was even possible against my will or knowledge. It was like sneezing for twenty minutes, plus a broken heart.

When I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, I laughed out loud at what a wreck I was, all puffy and leaky. Which brought on another wave.

I wondered if all those feelings could be fatal. If my brain could be overwhelmed, too much blood sent to the surface convolutions of the brain itself, causing a hemorrhage. It seemed dangerous to think of them.

we’d been wordlessly arguing in the car

I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, not what should be, not what ought to be, not what once was. Only the is.

I love you, is the thing. And I mean love love, not love you, bro. I mean, I am in love with you, and it’s an eye-color kind of love, unchangeable and bright.

I have felt much more for so long it’s possibly caused me brain damage.

My greed and hunger with respect to you are without limit. You should know, I tried for many years not to be in love with you, but I failed.

“Wait. Go back,” I said. I reached over and dragged my fingers across his laptop screen to slide the page. He rolled his eyes. “It’s not a touch screen.” Was he even serious? “Then just scroll on the track pad while I touch the screen.” “Oh my God,” he said under his breath. To his credit, he did scroll, and the screen slid back a few pages to where I wanted it. So it turned out his laptop was a touch screen, after

He took off his shoes and lay on the very edge of the bed, as far from me as he could possibly get while still occupying the same piece of furniture.

Because things were going so well and I was happy, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that if a taxi didn’t careen onto the sidewalk and crush me, it was going to be something else just as bad, and soon. I felt stalked by doom.

Meaning drained out of my life. A drudge appeared, a thick glue that fused me to the empty moment, preventing me from filling it with any activity except my circles of worry.

the beating wings of anxiety pushed the words out of my mouth.

Alcohol did this, too. Whole sections of my life were splashed with liquid from a bottle and were now undecipherable, smeared and forever unreadable.

My anxiety became a castle made of sand, built so carefully and heavily but nonetheless much too close to the shore. Its walls eroded.

Suddenly, it felt like a lead dental cape had been lowered over me. I cannot see myself ever walking along a beach unencumbered, I thought darkly.

We were seated at an iron table with scrollwork chairs. The ground upon which the table rested unsteadily was brick. I was having a tall Coke with flaky crushed ice and a brownie that was exactly as thick as three of my fingers.

When her hands gripped the knobby steering wheel of her Fleetwood and the light hit the jade stone just right, it looked as though it was filled with juice, and it made my mouth water.

Much of life was like that. It was a relief to be sober. It was also a burden and a great unfairness.

There was a charcoal grill outside, and we loaded it with steaks and corn, unhusked.

We drove to the beach and were dive-bombed by a seagull, and we wondered, “Is Tippi Hedren still alive?” I thought, This is how it feels inside the right decision.