TEN YEARS
Sarah Manguso
He seems glad to see me but at once I realize it’s because he gets to introduce his new girlfriend, who is younger than I am.
Realize the quieter it is, the more I work. Realize when the electricity goes out in the lightning storm that I work only slightly slower when writing by hand.
Watch a film about a Hollywood executive and realize all ambition comes from the same place.
Perform at fever pitch. The piece is over before I realize I’m singing.
Realize that in order to get any work done I need to be avoiding something.
Realize I’m afraid to call the new landlord because I don’t think I deserve such a nice apartment.
Realize I value my work more than any human relationship. And that so does he. And that this is what I loved about him.
Realize the wasteful fire in me is gone since he left.
Realize my debt to the one who tortured maturity into me.
Realize joy and despair are the same thing: certainty, or belief.
Realize that when someone insults you, it will irritate him most if you pretend to misunderstand the insult as a compliment.
Realize one can be fierce and aggressive without being angry. One can have a fierce and aggressive love.
Realize if I’d stayed with him I’d never have quit drinking.
Nightmares and insomnia from exercise and coffee, but waken deeply calm and, I now realize, possibly pregnant.
Realize one cannot convince another to be more ambitious, or to love anything or anyone.
Realize rich people won’t talk about how much money they have but love talking about how much money other rich people have.
Lecture at West Point. I think all the men are gay but then realize it’s just that they aren’t afraid of love, haven’t ever been allowed to brood or indulge in selfishness.
Realize time is better spent clarifying existing plans than implementing unclear plans.
Realize I eat the same thing every day so I don’t write the same thing every day.
Tell her I had the affair because he was too good a thing to keep in my troubled life. As soon as I say it I realize it’s true.
Realize that when I sleep alone, I talk to myself before falling asleep, as a way of thinking.
Realize I’m not the one to save him—his friends are the ones to save him. Then realize his friends aren’t the ones to save him.
Realize he sees the apartment as a series of particulate spaces and moments, whereas I see it as one entity, and thus we disagree on when it is untidy.
Realize the jokes I like are one of two things: the simplified restatement of a received obfuscation, or onstage glee followed by offstage disappointment.
Realize I was too distracted by the twenty or so surrounding bad choices to notice the five good ones.
Sit with a smug kid who at twenty-one saw his wife and knew, bought a ring after a month, and proposed after six more. Later I realize he is gay and she is rich.
Realize some egomaniacs put it all in print so they can be polite in person.
Realize most people I meet who say they’re interested in art in fact mean they’re interested in their own art.
His wife is fifteen years younger. It’s hard to respect him now—and yes, reader, I realize the problem is mine.
Realize she cares most about exhibiting what a caring person she is.
He runs marathons. Is every psychology dependent on maintaining a routine that convinces it of its supremacy? Realize I suspect all marathoners.
Realize she has no relevance outside the tiny room she forced her way into.
Realize most dancers are necessarily better listeners and more fluent speakers than most writers.