Alyson

When he called my legs “big,” the exhaustion set in. It began to sprinkle inside like the sky had been doing for the past three days. Who, I wondered, had called the sky’s legs “big” in kindergarten and “big” in several offices and “big” last weekend for it to break down into a gray mist?

The exhaustion of the gym, of constructing an image of myself I could live with, of negotiating what was reality and what was it that my mind reflected back to me in the mirror. The exhaustion of being OK.

I needed to feel part of something devouring, something bigger than even my legs. I held the covers hot in my fist as though the ball of thick fabric were sleep itself, and went away. ♦