Books

"Sometimes I wonder what it is I could tell you about her for my job here to be done. I am looking for a short­cut—something I could say that would effortlessly un­tangle the ball of yarn I am trying to untangle here on these pages. But that would be asking too much from you. It wasn’t you who loved her, or thought you loved her."

"This is all anyone needs to know, finally -- if you can resign yourself to losing, you may win."

"Sisterhood is powerful, but being a bitch is more exhilarating. Being a bitch is spectacular."

One afternoon she was drying on the rock, and she felt a thread of sunlight inside her chest. She had never believed in the existence of a soul except in abstract terms, yet she felt this, and she knew it was her soul. She wasn’t planning to do anything with it; she just liked knowing it was there. When she told me this story, I immediately began to picture myself with her, so I never used to like it when she told it to anyone else. Later, I realized no one else understands what the story’s about. Everyone seems to think it’s about religion, but what it really means is that she knows how to be alone.

Sitting in Taco Bell, I thought about how in my head, at the park, while glancing up at the clouds puffing innocent shapes in the sky, I had addressed her. I had addressed the ghost who’d haunted me for more than a decade. “I’m not glad you’re dead, but I’m glad I’m alive,” I’d told her. “I’m glad I can keep feeling sunlight fade my tattoos. I’m glad I can keep inhaling the corticosteroid nasal spray that relieves my allergy symptoms. I’m glad I can keep on listening to right-wing talk radio for fun.”
I bowed my head at the chalupa on the tray before me. In the context of our morning pilgrimage, it assumed the status of holy object. Relic. I peeled off its paper wrapper.
My fingers parted its doughy lips. Sealed by sour cream, they made that noise some girls make when you open them.
A woman was sacrificed so that I might sit here, autopsying my chalupa.
I noticed body parts floating inside the gooey rice: two coarse strands of hair.
I was alive and she was dead, so I ate. I ate my lunch, hair and all. We are all cannibals.