Never Have I Ever

by Joshilyn Jackson

own. I believed that no one could truly know me unless they knew my worst. I thought that in order to forge any new friendship, have any hope of love, I’d be required to lay the live, vile beast of my past upon an altar, belly-creep, and plead my case.

I knew from long experience that I only had to wait the feeling out. People say, I don’t know how she lives with herself, but every single one of them was living with their own worst thing, just fine. No one walks around holding their ugliest sin in the palm of their hand, staring at it. Our hurts are heavy, and we let them sink. Every day they drift lower, settling in murky places where the light can’t reach. All I had to do was wait. My bad would fall down into darkness again, because the bad things always do. All I had to do was make blondies. Update the neighborhood directory. Call Divers Down and get back on the teaching schedule. Feed the baby. All I had to do was all my jobs, and let time pass.

“Maddy, if you can’t say the word ‘orgasm’ without wanting to die, you’ve got no business trying to have one with anybody but yourself.”