from 'the story of a marriage' - andrew sean greer
08/07/2008 02:47 a.m.
sometimes, this is the only way i can say the things i've told myself to forget. by letting someone else say them.



from 'the story of a marriage' - andrew sean greer

How do you make someone love you? For the very young, there can be nothing harder in the world. You may try as hard as

you like: place yourself beside them, cook their favorite food, bring them wine or sing the love songs you know will

move them. They will not move them. Nothing will move them. You will waste days interpreting the simple banalities of

a phone call; months staring at their soft lips as they talk; you will waste years watching a body sitting in a chair

and willing every muscle to take you across the room and do a simple thing, say a simple word, make them love you, and

you will not do it; you will waste long nights wondering how they cannot feel this-- the urge to embrace, the snowmelt

in the heart when you are near them-- how they can sit in that chair, or speak with those lips, or make a call and

mean nothing by it, hide nothing in their hearts. Or perhaps what they hide is not what you want to see. Because

surely they love someone. It simply isn't you.