And when I am alone with myself, this is what I am waiting for someone to do to me, with merciless, deliberate hands, to put me down onto the canvas so that when I’m gone, there will be a record, proof that I was here.

Oh, she says, and then she takes a while to put on her clothes. I look away to give her privacy, but also because it is suddenly hard to watch, the indulgence so close to the aftermath that it feels indecent to watch her tie her shoes.

I think about the painting in the clinic and the canvas fibers curled beneath the oil.

And the truth is that when the officer had his arm pressed into my neck, there was a part of me that felt like, all right. Like, fine. Because there will always be a part of me that is ready to die.

cul-de-sac,

“It’s fine if you did.” He seems to notice now that his shoe is missing. “I was careless with you.” “No, I liked that,” I say, and he smiles. “Yeah. What was that about?” “I don’t know. Probably something to do with my dad.”

If I’m honest, all my relationships have been like this, parsing the intent of the jaws that lock around my head. Like, is he kidding, or is he hungry? In other words, all of it, even the love, is a violence.

He is the most obvious thing that has ever happened to me, and all around the city it is happening to other silly, half-formed women excited by men who’ve simply met the prerequisite of living a little more life, a terribly unspecial thing that is just what happens when you keep on getting up and brushing your teeth and going to work and ignoring t

You should be grateful, she says, the light from the TV illuminating her face, you have all the time in the world.