Cody Gohl

This is just dinner, one of many we will have together, these misfit toy students stuffed in apartments that are too big for their barely-20-something hearts.

I miss the start of it all and I think that’s why I cling to any artifacts from our beginnings.

Her lips linger far past politeness. She chugs a quarter of the bottle, smacking tongue to lip, wiping the coke that drips along the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand.

I think mostly what I miss is having someone to call at one o’clock in the morning when the room is warm and the edges are slightly purple, when my full bed is loose with longing.

Because Dallas is a messy and complicated city. Here, you’ll find some of the wealthiest people you’ll ever meet in areas like Midtown and Preston Hollow (wuddup, Bush) and some of the poorest in neighborhoods in the south of the city.

And don’t bother with your words I know them all by heart could stick them to needle point and sell them at craft fairs.

One’s history is a difficult thing to carry. There are all the obligations: to accuracy, to color, to aesthetics.

Feelings can crush us in two ways: they can terrify us into suppressing them or they can intoxicate us and leave us ravaged when they leave.

I will sometimes say things that are horrible and catty, things that are none of my business, things I wish I could shove back down my throat.

I hope that in spite of all this you’ll speak well of me and I hope it’s with a smile, the kind of smile that hides a little something at the corners, the kind of smile that people will ask you what are you smiling at?

He won’t be the most handsome or the most successful person you’ve ever met.

I don’t know how to wear his history and I’m afraid I do it clumsily like a toddler drowning in his father’s penny loafers.