My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.

These bits of poetry that stick to her like burrs.

You think you want the blue skies, the open road, but really you want the tunnel, you want to know how the story ends.

Some women make it look so easy, the way they cast ambition off like an expensive coat that no longer fits.

I had thought loving two people so much would straighten it.

Also she signed away the right to self-destruct years ago. The fine print on the birth certificate, her friends call it.

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.