Breasts and Eggs

It was every face of Makiko I’d ever known—the one who laughed and cried with me, who ran up to greet me the second she saw me, who sat in the park in her uniform and rode off on her bike, who shut her eyes tight and cried through the entire wake, who took money straight out of her pay envelope to buy me new indoor shoes for school, who sat there, all alone, in her hospital bed after giving birth to her daughter, who was always there for me—every side of her was smiling now.

Another single mother, working herself to death.

When I stared into the dark outside the window, it felt like that version of me, who had never seen this coming, was still asleep, under the covers.

That scared me, because I knew the feeling couldn’t last.

It’s stupid. It’s all stupid. But it’s stupid to write it’s stupid.

How is it possible I knew about sperm first? That doesn’t seem fair.

Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy. Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness. Even people who want to die see death as a kind of solace, and view ending their lives as the only way to make it there. Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator.

like when you’re folding up a bedsheet and its top and bottom edges come together.

It felt like the whole room was throbbing to the beating of my heart.

“Because you’re not one of the kids inside that little house. That’s why you can do it. Because whoever the child is, the one who lives and dies consumed with pain, could never be you.”