I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

. . bright sunlight can also be very sad have you noticed?

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

Pop Quiz: Q: What do you know about distance? A: I know that I feel it everywhere.

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

More about octopuses: they can taste a person’s body chemistry through their skin. I cannot imagine having to taste everyone’s depression and anxiety.

It’s strange now to think you’d been so close to throwing it all in with someone who wasn’t me. I thought it seemed easy for you to accept comfort as a replacement for love, while you thought it seemed easy for me to lie, over and over again, with my body.

Pop Quiz: Q: What makes Velcro stick? A: One surface is made of tiny hooks and the other is comprised of thin loops. When pressed together, the hooks lock around the loops, securing the two pieces together. Q: What does this mean for humanity?

A: We cannot help but cling.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” “What is?” “To love someone so much.” “So much what?”

“That you can love the annoyance, too,” I say, giving her a light shove.

You once said, What if we never have a kid? Then my life will have been for nothing, and I remember squeezing a wine glass so hard that it broke.

Q: Which is more important: the object or the light that illuminates the object? A: I know that I’ve spent my entire life convinced I wasn’t real unless I was loving someone with everything I had.

What I’m trying to say is—I’ve never been afraid of anything more than I’ve been afraid of my own happiness. But I want it, oh I want it. Something tells me it isn’t happiness without fear. This small fact keeps me breathing and sleeping.

I know I am growing obsessive, but I don’t know any other way to grow.

Here’s the thing: when an insect grows too big for its exoskeleton, it sheds it, a process known as molting. This may sound benign, but insects cannot breathe while molting. They must stop eating and lie very still. Completely incapacitated, they are vulnerable to a predator attack.

The kid is not like me—I never wanted to be an activist, I only ever wanted to survive. No, survive isn’t quite the right word. I just wanted to make it through without too much pain. I didn’t think I was asking too much.

Q: What is the story you’ve told yourself about yourself? A: That I’m not a capable person. Q: Have you ever considered taking a red pen to your life?

I no longer need reassurance that you’re with me. I know you are.