from caffe vita, two days ago

All the girls here have more muscled, beautiful calves and wear flat-soled shoes and light, floating articles of clothing and their footfalls are either soft or silent.

There are times when I have elegance in my normal movement, but what almost no one ever sees is the internal struggle--the fight of every muscle and tendon and bone to hold still in that second, in that moment--how difficult it is to orchestrate the way my limbs swing about to give every appearance of moving with the utmost leisure.

I walked around his cabin and down to the docks, solid and calm against the lapping of the lake's infinite waves, without finesse--I nearly tripped down the stairs twice--and on the grass down to the lake, I walked in a cock-eyed, grapevine pattern. I attributed it, out loud and yet subtextually, to the hard cider and the fucking and the swimming (which had some truth to it).

I am no swan--I am graceless, too, Berninger.

You will know if I am talking to or walking with someone I am trying to impress, if you know me at all: I am witty and crisp; I walk as if the person's presence is the most cushioned couch--comfortably--yet with an elongated, straighter spine; there are longer pauses between my sentences because there is more care put into their assemblies.

I do not float; I am no angel. I had my wings clipped and filed long ago.

But you…you could give me heaven. Or at least the closest approximation to it on Earth.

Or...you could just make me happy.