Someone Else's Ocean

by Kate Stewart

Because when you date yourself, there is no one to disappoint you.

People are selfish with their pain, but not their anger.

THERE’S A NAME FOR HUMAN awareness and it’s called Sonder. The definition: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground. It’s a pocket in time, where you may redefine life by the idea of the struggle of others.

“Are you feeling better?” “Yes, much.” “You have beautiful lips.” “Thank you.” “Get over here and put them on my cock.”

“I’ll be at your mercy anywhere but in the bedroom.”

“Every time I see you, I feel so relieved. Like I’d been living in some sort of dream and then I come back and you’re here,” he put my hand over his chest, “and I can breathe again.”

I let it happen. She played a part too, but in the end, I’d given her every part of me. She knew my every side, the small details, and I knew hers. We shared the things that made us significant and I’d allowed it, knowing how much it would hurt to lose it.

“Do whatever the hell you have to do to make yourself happy. We only get one life, Daddy.”