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It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we’d read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.

Aimee Bender

When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us.
AIMEE BENDER

Ghost Grab Hand Light Self Step Street
I peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item of food I could because my clothes would be staying on.
AIMEE BENDER

Clothes Dating Grape Item Peel Skin Slippery Stay Triangle Understood Undressing
I am the drying meadow; you the unspoken apology; he is the fluctuating distance between mother and son.
AIMEE BENDER

Apology Baby Distance Drying Fluctuate Life Mother Son Unspoken
My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen.” – Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures: Stories)
AIMEE BENDER

Band Gene Inside Love Rope Rubber Story
I was right at the edge of their circle, like the tail of a Q…
AIMEE BENDER

Circle Edge Like Right Tail
There’s a gift in your lap and it’s beautifully wrapped and it’s not your birthday.
AIMEE BENDER

Beautiful Birthday Important Lap Think Wrap
We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street.
AIMEE BENDER

Drop Hand Hit Sidewalk Street Wish World
But what I kept wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think?
AIMEE BENDER

Believe Burning Kept Passion Second Skirt Think Thinking Wonder
That’s the thing with handmade items. They still have the person’s mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone.
AIMEE BENDER

Burger Feel Handmade Hold Item Little Person
He was also removing all traces of any tiny leftover parts, and suddenly a ritual which I’d always found incestuous and gross seemed to me more like a desperate act on Joseph’s part to get out, to leave, to extract every little last remnant and bring it into open air.
AIMEE BENDER

Carefully Concentrate Desperate Detail Intimate Leave Open Part Remnant Ritual Time
I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist.
AIMEE BENDER

Expand Fist List Lung Paper Release Taken
It’s such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.
AIMEE BENDER

Excite Fraught Horrible Kind Such Time
Sometimes, she said, mostly to herself, I feel I do not know my children…
AIMEE BENDER

Children Herself Mother Thinking
My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.
AIMEE BENDER

Anytime Cave Eyelid Private Want
and I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it’s giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water.
AIMEE BENDER

Bone Eye Four Giving Hair Lose Number Wine Wise
I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn’t sustain my interest.
AIMEE BENDER

Bed Big Interest Novel Sustain Work Writing

It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we’d read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.

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It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we’d read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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