You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Maggie Smith

We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves—all of our selves—wherever we go.

The body is full of surprises, some wonderful, some terrible. Like, if all the blood vessels in your body were laid end to end, they would reach about sixty thousand miles.

Your thigh bone, the femur, is stronger than concrete. And hollow.

I didn’t want to be that friend—the one you know that when you see them and ask “How are you?” they will tell you how the fuck they are and it is not good, people.