Alisha > Recent Status Updates

“Perhaps my compulsion to apologize to men would someday be my actual cause of death.”

“Or perhaps it was simply that things were happening inside her, terrible things, which no one else could even guess at, and thus it was impossible for her to engage with everyday life at the same time. If so, she would naturally have no energy left, not just for curiosity or interest but indeed for any meaningful response to all the humdrum minutiae that went on on the surface.”

“What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. What are they waiting for?”

“It was hard to love a woman that always made you feel so wishful.”

“I am as close to godly as I can be. I am pure. I am lovable. I am exhausted.”

“His impunity thrills me, I mistake it for fearlessness, though years later he will admit to being afraid all the time.”

“What you risk reveals what you value.”

“Survive, whatever it takes.”

“There’s an air of doom about her. She seems profoundly lonely. It’s part of my attraction to her. She reminds me of the church bells of my childhood. In Geneva, all the church bells ring at the same time, every hour on the hour, in every corner of the city, and it’s the most melancholic sound I’ve ever heard, but also beautiful. I think that’s why the suicide rate is so high in Switzerland.”

“So this is how couples do. Marooned on carpet islands, submerged in the other’s deep curiosities. I thought: Maybe his unspoken grief is a complementary chord to my tight-lipped shame. We both had internal lives better left unvoiced.”

“The memory of sustenance is a terrible thing. Far worse, I think, than actual starving. Starving just kills you. Longing can gnaw away at you forever.”

“It occurred to me later the sole surviving remnant of the past belonged to me, the ghost of my father breaking through a ribbon in an old tin frame.”

“The word family never fails to make me feel like I’ve been punched. Conjures an iron gate, tall hedges around a house with lit up windows, me so embarrassingly obviously outside looking in. Pretending I have people to see, somewhere to go.”