Bluets

by Maggie Nelson

a young doctor inside asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10—I was flummoxed, I felt as though I shouldn’t be there at all—I said “6”—he said to the nurse, Write down “8,” since women always underestimate their pain. Men always say “11,” he said. I didn’t believe him, but I supposed he might know.

“I just don’t feel like you’re trying hard enough,” one friend says to me. How can I tell her that not trying has become the whole point, the whole plan?

Perhaps, in time, I will also stop missing you.