The Gravity of Us

by Phil Stamper

New York has a way of making you feel at home, no matter where you’re at. You just have to step off the street, and some neighborhood will claim you as one of their own.

I can fake a confident, serious pose, but I can’t fake happiness.”

“If you want to kiss me, kiss me because you like me. Not because you think it’ll make me happy.” “But I—” “You can’t just kiss away all the bad feelings I have. You can’t kiss me and make me better. I think you know that, but … I have to say it.”

I want him to know the improbability of two people meeting like this. That it’s astounding, no matter how inconsequential it is. Sure, strangers meet all the time. It’s the universe’s way to say we don’t matter. None of this matters. Our eyes meet. And it’s clear that, sometimes, the universe is just wrong.

Orpheus, son of Apollo. A story about trust, and moving forward. It’s clever, I think.”

I’ve never been able to go back and forth between being so perfectly content and so perfectly lustful of someone so quick. It’s like a switch. And I want it to keep flipping on and off. On and off.

There’s something gratifying about kissing someone goodbye. Just having someone to kiss goodbye is special, and I hope I never take him for granted.

Nostalgia is a blindfold.

Stars punch through the night sky, and I’m left with a pit in my stomach, homesick for a world I’ve never had.

his therapist has been teaching him to be self-sufficient, like, not depending on others to determine when he’s happy or sad. And I think you might need to figure out the same thing before you see him again.”

“Don’t aim to fix people. Fixing seems so permanent, so absolute. Like there’s no room for error. Aim to make things better.

But maybe that’s what real life is like. Unlike when you’re stuck with family or friends for so long you have to make amends. You can end working relationships on a dissonant chord, one that leaves you feeling gross and wrong all over.

“I need you to support me now. I need you to be okay with how I am now, and not think of me as someone who is broken.”

People aren’t broken, and therapists couldn’t fix them if they were. But maybe someone can make things a little better, or help them be a little happier.