Dear, sweet, Littlefoot, do you remember the way to the Great Valley? I guess so. But why do I have to know if you’re going to be with me? I’ll be with you. Even if you can’t see me. What do you mean I can’t see you? I can always see you.
I love you angry characters I love you revenge arcs I love you protagonists who kill people and don’t feel bad about it I love you manipulative heroes I love you gray morals I love you terrifying protagonists I love you characters who hold boiling grudges I love you characters who reveal that their perceived harmlessness was just patience the whole time I love you stories about atonement and rage and vengeance that don’t end in forgiveness or guilt I love you stories that explore the healing power of incandescent rage
I know what it’s like to be afraid of something that may or may not happen. I know what it’s like to be preoccupied. I know what it’s like to put my quarters in the washing machine and forget if I ever took my dirty jeans out of the closet and put them in the bag to be washed. I know what it’s like to feel something both immense and vague while being engrossed in the specific. I know what it’s like to be scared that this life is my life. I know what it’s like to be scared that I am not who I am, or be scared that I am who I am. I know what it’s like, I am trying to say, to be alive when being alive means nothing more than being alive. The laundry every other week. The dread of what should not give me dread. The cold pizza on the counter. I haven’t called my mother in a long time.
— Devin Kelly, Ordinary Plots: Alicia Mountain’s “A Deer Mistaken for a Statue of a Deer”
when jorge luis borges wrote in a copy of beowulf that he was working on translating, “beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing, the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.”