We All Want Impossible Things

by Catherine Newman

I just want this. Not even the sex exactly, but the being wanted. The oblivion of it. Someone else’s feelings crowding mine out, burning them clean.

Every year, ever since the girls were born, I have blown out the candles on my birthday cake and wished for just this. Everything I have already. No loss. I can’t spare anybody is what I always think. But, then, people must be spared. That is the whole premise of this life, of this time we have with each other.