I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

The kid is born with two shadows. You better believe I head straight down to the Department of Balance office to appeal their decision. It isn’t right, giving an extra shadow to a baby. It’s not like she killed you on purpose, Beau. She’s a newborn baby, for fuck’s sake. She’s basically a more sophisticated potato. And that’s exactly what I tell the receptionist resting his boots on top of his desk. He is long and slender, with a droopy face.

What an intro lol

But what I want matters very little to my temper, which I can feel building behind my eyes before it finally overflows, wet hot tears streaming down my face. It has always been this way, my anger and sadness twin forces inside of me.

I want to be someone who moves people, even tiny, helpless people. Now, where is that switch, the one that turns off such a humiliating desire?

For the record, you had no business coming into my life just to turn around and leave. On our first date, you took my hand across the table and smiled with every atom inside of you. Your boldness was almost revolutionary. I thought, what are the odds that this is happening everywhere, all the time?

What I mean is, it never once occurred to me that you, too, were mortal.

This book is going to rip my heart out, i can feel it

But I don’t want to be strong, I want to be a time-traveler.

We is the longest word I know.

I’d always considered myself too selfish to have children, too jealous to share you. I loved children, was good with them, as long as they belonged to someone else.

If I had to choose, I would say the moment between when you decided to kiss me and when we actually kissed, that is where I wish to live forever. Inside my anticipation, dying to receive you.

I, too, would be fearless if I had an exoskeleton.

Tomorrow, I decide, will be better. Tomorrow, I will recover from today.

I never feel like I know how to live in the world. Only on top of it, hanging on as it spins madly.

Pop Quiz: Q: What is worth more: a human life or physical property? A: Say what you really mean. Q: I’m the one who demands things around here. A: Which human life?

“Everyone always thinks the past was simpler days.”

I’m not sure what it is babies want from their superiors.

We are putting on an incredible performance of survival. Where is our prize?

In this world, you learn to hold the good days and bad days together in your lungs, and you don’t dare breathe out, for fear that in releasing the bad days, you’ll also lose the good ones.

“I’d cry if I wasn’t so sad,”

I’ve heard it said that love is choosing to listen to how someone’s day went at least thirty thousand times. Love is saying, I am here, I am paying attention, and I care about that fight you had with your coworker.

How do I keep my human mask from peeling off?

You’ve stamped me forever, like a library card.

worry I will lose it all at any moment, but I keep my exoskeletons to myself.