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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

I don’t think so, I don’t agree. The most unbearable thing I think by far, she said, is hope.
AIMEE BENDER

Agree Far Hope Said Think Unbearable
The wine glasses are empty except for that one undrinkable red spot at the bottom.
AIMEE BENDER

Bottom Empty Except Glasses Red Spot Wine
We’re all getting too smart. Our brains are just getting bigger and bigger, and the world dries up and dies when there’s too much thought and not enough heart.
AIMEE BENDER

Bigger Brain Dry Heart Smart Up World
While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave.
AIMEE BENDER

Cry Cut Cutting Grave Moving Mushroom Simple
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
It seemed to happen in springs, the revealing of things.
AIMEE BENDER

Happen Reveal Seem Spring
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
You can ruin anything if you focus at it.
AIMEE BENDER

Anything Focus Ruin
I watched as she added a question mark at the end. Arc, line, space, dot.
AIMEE BENDER

Add Dot Line Question Space Watch
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
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
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 was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.
AIMEE BENDER

All Echo Like More Participant
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
With my hand in his, I looked at all the apartment buildings with rushes of love, peering in the wide streetside windows that revealed living rooms painted in dark burgandies and matte reds.
AIMEE BENDER

Apartment Building Dark Hand Look Love Peer Room Rush Streetside Window
As a writer you ask yourself to dream while awake.
AIMEE BENDER

Awake Dreams Writer Writing Yourself
You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground.
AIMEE BENDER

Nuts Trying Seem Totally Underground
Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn’t appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.
AIMEE BENDER

Appreciate Flaw Kid Later Life Mess Parent Seem Strong
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
You feel wonderful, you feel like somebody knows you’re alive, you feel fear because it could be a bomb, because you think you’re that important.
AIMEE BENDER

Alive Bomb Important Somebody Think Wonderful
A Dorito asks nothing of you, which is its great gift. It only asks that you are not there.
AIMEE BENDER

Ask Doritos Doubt Gift Great Nothing
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
To see someone you love, in a bad setting, is one of the great barometers of gratitude.
AIMEE BENDER

Barometer Gratitude Love Setting Someone
I want to be violated by insight.
AIMEE BENDER

Insight Violate Want
I was right at the edge of their circle, like the tail of a Q…
AIMEE BENDER

Circle Edge Like Right Tail
It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It’s the mathematical logic of being alive.
AIMEE BENDER

Everything Kept Life Logical Loss Mathematics Normal Number Sadness
If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness-cry and then walk-but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order.
AIMEE BENDER

Break Clean Cry Everything Happen Lose Normal Order Parent Progressive Walk

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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