On her own, she stared out at the sky, which was a tender blue.

She realized this person sitting here, admiring the sky, wasn’t a person she recognized anymore. She didn’t know who she was without pain.

Color has a large and specific vocabulary, blue, cobalt, topaz. Using these words, a person can describe an exact wavelength of light with little effort or imagination, the listener able to glimpse the experience. Hearing, touch, taste and smell also have their own vivid descriptors. Loud. Sandy. Sweet. Musky. Pain, on the other hand—not considered

He stood still for it, but she could feel his discomfort as her fingers brushed his face and hands. He must not be accustomed to being cared for.

Civilization is based upon a charade, such careful theater. Each of us buttoning up our costumes, hiding our fur, living in carefully sculpted sets, while we pretend we’ve never pooped or had coitus. The illusion broken each time we tighten into death or squeeze a baby out our hoo-ha or fall in love.

The parent-child bond was different. Even though the relationship started off with the parents in the role of the lowest sort of slaves (wiping the master’s butt, responsible for every meal, being screamed at for mysterious infractions in the middle of the night), what parents divorced their newborn? No, instead hopped up on hormones, they gasped