Any Man

by Amber Tamblyn

We sink to the bottom of each other’s oceans, drowning in shared silence.

When Camilla gets angry, her shoulders move back and forth as she speaks, like spreading wings. I’ve always loved this about her. Sometimes I grab her by them and say, Don’t take off, hothead.

The human smile no longer makes sense to me. Why is it a sign of happiness? Who decided that? Why not the crinkling of the nose, or blinking, or a hard swallow? Who invented the word smile and gave it its meaning? Smile is the shape of my mouth Amanda wants to see when she comes running out of the science fair, pushing her lime-colored glasses up her nose and shrieking with good news. Smile is the shape of my mouth my therapist looks for when she asks how I’m doing. It is the shape of my mouth Camilla wants to kiss when I return from a day’s work. The shape of my mouth my neighbors and colleagues desire to set them at ease. It makes others feel safe with my story. I practice this smiling, this mouth’s shaping, in the mirror. I do it for them.

I know despair. Known it for years. I’ve introduced it to my family and spent holidays with it. I argue with it about how to load the dishwasher. I watch TV with it at night. I take a shit in the morning by its side. I go for long walks at dusk and let it spew its foul thoughts in my ears. I take it to the doctor when it’s not feeling well. I ride home with it after every show I do, especially the good ones. That’s when despair really likes to be there for me. To remind me it was just a fluke. I thank despair for keeping me honest. For never lying to me. I take it up to my place for a nightcap. I fuck it to feel better. I wake up a bitter man.

There’s a cave in me. A hardened opening I don’t want and don’t know how to close. She sat there listening, looking beautiful. Felt good to be listened to like that. No judgment. Then she said one word. “Dynamite.” What about dynamite, I asked and moved closer. She whispered, that’s how you get rid of a cave you don’t want.

“How can you go on living when you’re now being lived in? When you’ve been invaded?

But my world was—it was forever gone. I felt like a sun in a perpetual state of setting. That’s the only way I can describe to you how things felt. An unending sense of twilight. Everything I did, everything I said, everything I saw, was dusk. My whole life had turned into impending nightfall. My existence was just caught light, suspended in semidarkness.