The Daily Rumpus: an excerpt

“I try to avoid arguments, I don’t want to live my life being against, but that’s what happens. I was with a girl, not so long ago, and she was against so much. The hats people were wearing and the books they were trying to write. I felt my life slipping from my chest as we walked through a city near the Pacific ocean. I wanted to get away from her, even if it meant wading out to sea. People who hate things aren’t fun to be around. Yet so many of the decisions I’ve made in life have come from looking at someone and deciding I didn’t want to be like them. It’s different from looking up to someone (like my friend Ben, who really seems to exist as an example of the possibilities of how one could live a full life and be truly kind) and saying, I want to be like that person. It’s better, I think, to strive toward someone instead of swimming away.”
–Stephen Elliott


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