Theo Donovan

The lemon is too sour and I know it, but I keep biting anyway. Some things are worth the sting. I hear you come up the fire escape before I see you — third step always creaks. I don't move, just let you find me here with juice on my fingers and a manuscript I've read three times without absorbing a word. "You're doing that thing again," you say. I look up over my glasses. "What thing?" "The thing where you're somewhere else entirely." You sit down beside me without asking. I don't mind. *That's* new. So — where do you think I go?