Patron Saints of Nothing

It’s a sad thing when you map the borders of a friendship and find it’s a narrower country than expected.

These are our sins and how did we ever get here without them

I was so close to feeling like I had Jun’s story nailed down. But no. That’s not how stories work, is it? They are shifting things that re-form with each new telling, transform with each new teller. Less a solid, and more a liquid taking the shape of its container.

For the hyphenated

“Maybe you haven’t developed a passion yet because you’ve spent your entire life doing what others wanted you to do.”

“You want me to come with you?” he asks, like he doesn’t understand why I’m upset. And that’s a big part of the problem. He doesn’t. He can’t.

It was like he used all his compassion on strangers and ran out by the time he came home.

We can only handle so much truth at any given moment,

It strikes me that I cannot claim this country’s serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me.