Julio Alexi Genao

“The best sci-fi stories use the fantastical to remind us of the reality of who we are today, the hope of who we may become tomorrow, and the shame of who we were yesterday.”

“But it turns out Joy is a house built from the same bricks as Sorrow. Pleasure is a poem, and it uses the same words as Pain.”

“I wanted to take your hand into mine and kiss it.I never dared.”

“So. Monday. We meet again.We will never be friends—but maybe we can move past our mutual enmity toward a more-positive partnership.”

“That’s why I was calm. When you woke me in the middle of the night with your hand around my throat, and I thought I was going to die for bringing you home—that I had given my life to lie down next to a murderer—that’s why I was calm.Because all I was thinking in that moment was that it was worth it.”

“what it is is the memory of a dance a song you heard long ago to hear it is to be young again and for once for once you are happy”

“people say life is”

“They’d come for you, and this time they’d come with we”

“Not your distress. Never that. I loved— I loved being there. Next to you. The pile of limbs that was Us. Together in the same bed. Even if it meant waking up with a few new bruises.”

“You let me set the water in the shower, and followed me into the booth to stand there with me under the warm spray. You kept your head down, not looking me in the eyes—though if you were shy, I couldn’t tell. You had no reason to be. You know what you look like.I know you don’t remember what we did.I want to tell you.”

“I didn’t know what”

“don’t tell me not to drink. not to smoke. not to grieve. if i speak of these things it’s because i have to— but i am not speaking to you.”

“I was asked a series of ques”

“The second day, I watched you suffer through one of your nightmares, but this one was worse than I’d seen before. You called out another man’s name.”

“My skin hungered for you. You were warm, and alive, and in my bed, and I wanted you so bad I could feel the ripple of need on the pads of my fingertips, on the palms of my hands, on the skin of my back, at the base of my cock, inside my ass—I wanted the taste of you in my mouth.”

“I watched you roll off me and step away from the bed in silence, but when the heat of your body was gone, I wanted it back.”