An Unnecessary Woman

by Rabih Alameddine

My heart had momentarily found its pestle.

For some reason she reminds me of the girl Fernando Pessoa tried to befriend, the single romantic liaison in his life.

Who?

When you write about the past, you lie with each letter, with every grapheme, including the goddamn comma.

No loss is felt more keenly than the loss of what might have been. No nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed.

My shoulder muscles have spun themselves into worsted yarn, their numbness and ache locked deep between the blades.

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who want to be desired, and people who want to be desired so much that they pretend they don’t.”