Acts of Service

by Lillian Fishman

I was meant to have sex—probably with some wild number of people.

It didn’t really bother me that I was gay as much as that I might be creepy, you know, the way a man is creepy.

It takes a little bit of sex to remember you don’t really know people when you see them on the street. Sex forces you back into awe—reveals to you just how difficult it is to know someone, just how much attention and self-delusion are required to conjure love.

Omg

I had always wanted to believe what people said about themselves.

When I was naked I would think: There she is, that girl I love.

that if I were to foster any intimacy with a man it would be both despite and because of the fact that I could only be a body to him.

I was reminded of how I felt in libraries: quick, awestruck, aware that this scale of knowledge was a freedom so great I would have disbelieved it had I not been born into its public shelter.

Beautiful

There’s no one I could look at, that anyone could look at, to distill their sexuality into a couple of paragraphs.

AYEEEEE

It was comforting to say that I loved what Nathan provided me, and not the man himself. But wasn’t that the nature of all love? Gratitude, for how we had been made to feel?

Enough

How we should recognize them for the creative adventures they are, she said, with a reluctant smile. Our love scenes. The only chance we’ll ever get to touch the face of heaven.

Oh my dear god

It was tempting to forget the ugliness of transformation, bitter to remember it.

We love what disturbs us if it chooses us and tells us how we matter.

FC