The Late Americans

by Brandon Taylor

If you just said enough names, people assumed you knew what you were talking about and tended to attribute the vagueness of the reference to their own ignorance.

i've never related to something more in my entire life

It wasn’t that their lives were worse than his or that his life was better than theirs—it was that they all had the same pain, the same hurt, and he didn’t think anyone should go around pretending it was something more than it was: the routine operation of the universe.

You ain’t seen the world yet. How you know you wanna give it up and you ain’t seen nothing?”