(no subject)
Anthony’s apartment bordered a burned-out pecan farm. At dusk, he called: come watch the magnolias drop. Sprawled on the floor of his living room, we stared out at the trees, ordered take-in. Four chimichangas, a burrito the size of my head. With our mouths full of salt and grease, we talked about Anais Nin and Henry Miller. I loved Anais most of all because she had a husband on each coast. Two. Anthony said could never get past the abortion. I took a sip of water, folded a tostada wrapper into a triangle, smaller and smaller. Not that she had an abortion but how she wrote about it. When the song on the record ended, another one began; it was not the same song, but I could not tell the difference. Anthony handed me a cigarette, already lit: in the diaries like she was a goddess, something about a purity ritual. I exhaled towards the ceiling; box fan blowing it all back in my face. When I unfolded the tostada wrapper, fifteen tiny triangles. I said think it’s more complicated than that. Anthony rolled another cigarette, paper sticking to his fingertips: what do you mean? Interrupted himself again and again: she didn’t even tell him. I let the silence widen. Anthony ate the last of the burrito: that’s just like you. I stretched out my legs, leaned over, into him. That nothing is anything but itself is almost enough.