“In my dream I apologize to everyone I meet. Instead of introducing myself, I apologize for not knowing why I am alive. I am sorry. I am sorry. I apologize. In real life, oddly enough, when I am fully awake and out and about, if I catch someone’s eye, I quickly look away. Perhaps this too is a form of apology. Perhaps this is the form apologies take in real life. In real life the looking away is the apology, despite the fact that when I look away I almost always feel guilty; I do not feel as if I have apologized. Instead I feel as if I have created a reason to apologize, I feel the guilt of having ignored that thing—the encounter. I could have nodded, I could have smiled without showing my teeth. In some small way I could have wordlessly said, I see you seeing me and I apologize for not knowing why I am alive. I am sorry. I am sorry. I apologize. Afterwards, after I have looked away, I never feel as if I can say, Look, look at me again so that I can see you, so that I can acknowledge that I have seen you, so that I can see you and apologize.”
― Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
― Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
“It’s not fair that I’ve had so much privilege. And by privilege I mean life.”
― Mean
― Mean
“I do miss childhood: one long trance state, broken only by bouts of sickening family discord.”
― In Zanesville
― In Zanesville
“Sometimes you read something and a thought that was floating around in your veins organizes itself into the sentence that reflects it.”
― Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
― Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
“You never predict that rapists are lurking in the sun, sky, and trees. In other words, humans are as they seem. Seeming is real. After a stranger ambushes you and assails your private parts, everything becomes new. Everything is reborn. Everything takes on a new hue, the color of rape. You look at the world through rape-tinted glasses.”
― Mean
― Mean
Owen’s 2025 Year in Books
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