Many miles away from home, she bent over to pet a scruffy cat with a needful meow. But her comfort-giving backfired when the cat followed several feet behind her more than twenty blocks through the rain before finally giving up on a new friendship.
Staying
Some people suggested that I move to another town. But there’s a strange comfort in going alone all the places we used to go together: it proves you’re not necessary for this world and this life to exist.
Forced
He could not admire those who forced themselves to “do good.” But he couldn’t help admiring those from whom generosity flowed freely.
Memory
She had always thought of her father as an unreasonably harsh disciplinarian and had little if any recollection of his tenderness. Yet later on in life, her brother reminded her that when she had been very small and made what she considered to be a “gourmet” sandwich of ham, barbecue sauce, Fritos, and Tang sprinkled on top for good measure, their father had eaten it all and told her several times how good it was.
Diction
The sisters could not get along. There were so many trigger words in their respective vocabularies that even the most mundane comment from either of them would immediately be interpreted by the other as a scathing insult.
Gratitude
I’m glad I got dumped by everyone before my current boyfriend, and that I couldn’t get hired for any job until the one I’ve got now. I was willing to settle for something mediocre, but time and again, rejection spared me that fate.
Disillusioned
When she first went away to college, she was excited to join the student group organized around social justice. She dropped out a few months later with the impression that behind a flimsy façade of civil rights-inspired rhetoric, it was all just an excuse for people to smoke up together, trade indie badges, and get laid without having to go to a club.
Re-adjustments
Everyone has those nightmares (easily dismissed once they’ve graduated into the workforce) in which they’ve forgotten to study for an exam or to turn in a project.
The hardest thing about going back to grad school was waking up from one of these nightmares with the momentary uncertainty of whether or not it might be true.
Lacking
All during his life, most types of learning came naturally to him. It was both a blessing and a curse because, seldom having been forced to cultivate patience, he would become doubly frustrated on the rare occasions that he couldn’t readily absorb a new technique or concept.
Sharing
He liked icing, and she liked cake. They grew fat together.
Cannibal
When he died, her father left her an inheritance large enough to travel the world many times over. She was so wracked by guilt that she had a recurring nightmare in which she was a cannibal—literally living off the remains of the dead.
Assumption
She justified being overweight by saying she wanted someone to fall in love with her for her and not her body. A couple decades of loneliness and thirty pounds of M&Ms later, she began to wonder if her body wasn’t really a part of her after all.
em dash?
He always wondered why a writer like himself constantly felt the need to lengthen a perfectly adequate sentence with an em dash, especially since an em dash coming after something like an “h” or a “b” gives the letter the distinct appearance of sporting a massive erection. Oh—
Far-sighted
People were always telling him to read between the lines. All he saw between the lines was white space.
Lost
He began to attack the ideas he scorned by parody. After many years, he could not quite remember where he started or clearly discern which words he really meant as opposed to the ones spoken sarcastically.
Why
Near the end of his life, he searched through the motives behind all of the stupid things he had done. When it was not carelessness, it was loneliness.
Wasted
Every time they were together, he was drunk, or high, or deliberately flirting with other girls in front of her just to make sure she knew how little she mattered to him. The whole thing made her feel like such a waste of really fine wine of some beer-guzzler’s ass.
Cold-hearted bitch
She used him until she didn’t need him anymore. Then, for decency’s sake, she allowed herself the occasional twinge of guilt and regret usually associated with these situations.
Lapse
He only lost control once. But that was enough to destroy everything.
Ill-fated Romance
He called to ask her out on Valentine’s and, after some hesitancy said: “Do you believe in poetry?”
She said, “I don’t believe in much of anything,” but she ended up going to the reading downtown with him anyway.