“The Traditional<\/a>” by Maria Dahvana Headley:<\/p>\n By your first anniversary, the world\u2019s stopped making paper, and so you can\u2019t give 3your boyfriend the traditional gift. You never would have anyway, regardless of circumstances. You\u2019re not that kind of girl. You pride yourself on your original sin. It\u2019s the hot you trade in.<\/em><\/p>\n So you give him the piece of your skin just beneath your ribcage on the right side, where the floating ribs bend in. It\u2019s a good part. Not the best. You\u2019re like a food hoarder who pretends her larder\u2019s empty, all the while running her finger along the dusty ledge that leads to the trick shelves that hold the jars of Caspian caviar. You\u2019ve always been the kind of liar who leans back and lets boys fall into you while you see if you can make them fall all the way out the other side. You want them to feel like they\u2019ve hit Narnia. You traffic in interdimensional fucking, during which they transcend space and time, and you go nowhere. When they fall in love, you Shun & Break\u2122 them. Their poor plastic hearts are Pez dispensers topped with copyright violation Mickey Mice.<\/em><\/p>\n Your boy\u2019s not falling for this shit. He simply refuses. He sees through your methods. You met him in a bar on the night of the first apocalypse, just prior, and both of you somehow lived through the night.<\/em><\/p>\n He clocked you from moment one, when you bought him a drink and brought it to him, fresh lipstick on your mouth, altering your walk to cause him pain. He drank it. He then took the cherry out of yours and drank your drink too, looking at you the whole time like he was a prime transgressor who was going to rock your world until it broke.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou gonna try to make me love you now?\u201d he asked. \u201cThat your thing?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBrother,\u201d you said, taken aback by the way he\u2019d just needlessly whacked the rules of flirtation, \u201cI don\u2019t even know you exist.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m a big fan of science fiction that takes vivid, strange images into the future. I think, actually, I always have — and if you look at a lot of classic SF, that’s what it’s doing. That’s obvious when reading … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading ![\"The-Traditional-by-Maria-Dahvana-Headley-575x442\"](\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/rachelswirsky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/The-Traditional-by-Maria-Dahvana-Headley-575x442.jpg?resize=300%2C231\")
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