HAD SHE ONLY KNOWN
brendan o'brien
He loved them immediately, oddly, and now proceeds with a steady finger, the way someone might accept a parakeet. If she’d known the dimples on the small of her back would cause this she would have never accepted his invitation. Had she known the dimples (found above a tattoo only a handful of the world’s men are privy to) possessed certain intangible powers, like glowing kryptonite, she would have stopped the jogging and the sit-ups and the advanced yoga until they faded away like a phone number from skin. She would have quit ordering ice water with lemon. She would have started devouring things like fried turtle cheesecake and chicken fingers dipped in gravy. She would have become huge. She would have bathed with a yardstick and a sponge. She would have let the cotton fibers of her nightgown grow into her skin. She would have waited as giggling construction men knocked out the living room to take her outside for the first time in years. She would have looked into the blinding sun as the crane swung and the camera crew hurried into position.
Brendan O’Brien
bjobrien27@hotmail.com
Rant
Chuck Palahniuk