Dodo Eraser

He was impressive, in most ways—a sailor, a pilot, a cyclist, a good cook—But he made Hemingway seem verbose, and the fact that I respect Hemingway’s work without savoring it says a lot about why I only dated this man for two months. To be fair, he could appreciate rich language, but couldn’t use it, which dulled our most sublime-adjacent moments to the level of clammy gray water. Everything was good, great, nice, sweet, cool, or awesome. And if not one of those, it was simply Not good, which drove me batshit, because describing something by what it’s not is like describing a painting based on the blank wall beside it. I should’ve teased him—Is it really just “Not good,” Babe? Could it maybe be “awful,” “vile,” “alarming,” “affronting,” “appalling,” “disgusting,” “despicable,” “reprehensible,” or even just plain “bad”? Have you heard of a thought-terminating cliché? I should’ve said, What scares you so much about words? Do you believe words are spells? Are you afraid I’ll cast one on you, or you’ll cast one on yourself, if you fuck up one especially hot night and get effusive? Do you even know what “effusive” means?

When I told some writer friends about him, they went into paroxysms of laughter at the mere idea of me—a person obsessed with the accuracy of my verbal expression—dating that. And though this monosyllabic man had, in his way, mastered both sea and sky, he lacked the vocabulary to be fully truthful about anything. Am I calling him a liar? I guess I am. Because when I asked how were the scrambled eggs I made, he said they were great, and after we had sex for the first time, as well as for the last time, he said it was great, and when I asked how was that sunrise flight he took to Pennsylvania in his Cessna, he said that was great, too, and only later did I find out that he’d been flying there not just for the pleasure of piercing the elements of air and light and water with his fuselage, but also to visit a female friend who enjoyed sailing, cycling, and pleasant conversations without too many polysyllabic words. And I’m not saying he pierced her elements with his fuselage before I dumped him, but I am saying that within twenty-four hours of being dumped by me, he’d fucked that more-agreeable, less-complex woman from behind and, when he finished, I’m certain he told her it was great.

Francesca Leader (@mooninabucket on most socials) has written a lot of poetry lately, but she identifies as a fiction writer. Learn more about her work at mooninabucket.com.