this is not the fear of touching somebody’s foot under the table, but of after; not of getting somebody’s plate accidentally and taking a bite out of it, but of the aftertaste, this is necessary, this is the fear you get when you make eye contact with a stranger after you realize the following: that loss of eye contact is an agreement you’ve made with a stranger to look no longer at each other: this is the following stupid human trick on letterman

feel the love.

and the realization that a good marriage is between a person who’ll put a fork in his nose and another who’ll eat the spaghetti, it’s about calculating the amount of sweat created by involuntary hormonal reactions to loud noises in public spaces, math of how many there are, math of how lonesome it makes us, math of how long the following pug could safely make the following noises:

you can\'t hear it but they say it back, trust me

before losing his voice forever, the point is the love in that video isn’t between woman and pug but between ourselves and its words, the pug is dead, now, but we are not, which is part of it, too, you may think you know how easy it is to give up hope but it’s easier.

you have to work yourself up about this, sadder than sad enough, then explain it as microwave envy, or meatball envy, or just spouse envy, pug envy, even, call it whatever as long as you remember, months later, as long as it comes back to you so hard it breaks your nose, gives you a brand new face, one that’s capable of looking out at this world as though there are things in it that matter, the point is don’t stop after that, don’t you dare stop, because you will end up like the following person

thirty two seconds. sad.

yourself, i mean, moments ago, you will become the kind of person who watches king kong forwards but can never rewind it, can’t see it undone- kong leaping up the empire state building like a tall flight of stairs, stretching so hard and with such triumph that the bullets suck out of his body, the planes throwing it in reverse, aviators panicking, his hand given back for her tiny hug.

this isn’t an instruction manual, because there can’t be one, and it isn’t a manifesto, because there hasn’t been one and we’re still doing OK, this is an indictment of “anyways,” love letters to “nevermind,” arguments from ignorance about our ignorance, the word “weirdo,” dreams of trying to sing in too-high octaves, waking up with a hurt throat.

the good news is, after that, you sound like this guy:

heart of daniel johnston, soul of tom waits, eye(s) of tiger(s)

the bad news is you’re supposed to be falling in love right now, so quit putting it off.