When she met my father she was still really good at being quiet. When she met him she realized how she had been collecting silence in a slender, delicate glass jar behind her ribcage. The bottle was not corked and so she always had to be very careful not to spill it. When she met him what happened was he took her out dancing and told her, “You make me feel like a pony.” She didn’t know what the hell that meant, but it made her damp inside like a flood, so the bottle broke and she didn’t care anymore as long as she could have him.

