The Inexplicable Logic of My Life

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

I had a theory that everyone has a relationship with words—​whether they know it or not. It’s just that everybody’s relationship with words is different. Dad told me once that we have to be very careful with words. “They can hurt people,” he said. “And they can heal people.”

She was in love with simple, uncomplicated, levelheaded Sally. And I didn’t know how to tell her that I wasn’t all those beautiful things she thought I was.

I saw this quiet and sad look wash over his face. “But you know we’re always going to have to rely on the goodwill of those of you who are straight for our survival. And that’s the damned truth.”

History repeating itself. It’s called recidivism.”

I wanted to tell her that God was just a beautiful idea and I didn’t care about beautiful ideas and that He was just a word I hadn’t run into yet, hadn’t met yet, and so He was still a stranger.

“Phase four equals depression. Yeah, well, depression. Anger turned inward.

I tried to think of something beautiful so I could fall asleep again.

“Do you know how many languages we’ve killed off in the history of the world? You kill a language off, and you kill off an entire people.”

It started to snow, big flakes that fell silently to the ground. I wondered if that’s what death sounded like. Like a snowflake falling on the ground.

With all the grace of the old world. The old, dying world.