Okay, THIS time you will say something. THIS time you will stand up for yourself. “Please don’t say that.” “Why do you have to talk to me like that?” Practicing. Performing? But, of course, as soon as I got there I could never give my all. I’d enter the door, hellos projected up and down the stairwell, and before I had finished removing my sneakers—back pain, anxiety, gas in the gut, brick on the chest. The feeling so visceral, the glares of judgment. It hijacks your resolve, pulverizing it like the pecans for her crumble. A doll with its string pulled, auto-response on replay, not even real.
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