There Was No Seat for Me at the Luxury Restaurant. By Dessert, They Regretted It

machinery of myself begin to engage — the reflex toward explanation, justification, the shrinking, the finding of a smaller shape that might fit the available space.

I thought of my father’s voice, the way it had sounded the first time I told him about the bookstore. Build it solid enough that it doesn’t collapse the first time someone leans on it wrong.continue reading …