/ləv/
n.1
Origin: gas station hotdog
- Shared opportunity, as in:
“Remember how the attendant gave the rest of them to us for free? He hesitated for that heavy moment after we asked for two of them. I swear I saw his eyes glaze. Visions. PTSD. Memories of war.
‘You can just have them,’ he said, placing each dynamite stick into a cold white bun. ‘I was going to throw them out anyway.’ Pretty sure he winced after he said it, like he wanted to take it back. You reached, paused, turned to me, a search for approval with your eyebrows raised. Eyebrows that come to these points before swooping back down. I gave you a curt, admiral’s yes.
The A/C of the car thinly tossed the smell of onion and relish from a paper bucket balanced in the cup holder. We took turns playing songs we listened to in high school. We joked about which of us would get sick, like the rollers that cooked them were a roulette wheel.”
v.1
Origin: Apartment shopping.
- Making sacrifices, as in:
“I wanted mountain views and a stacked washer and dryer and hardwood in the bathrooms. You let me pick almost everything, but I’m grateful you insisted on the floorplan with two bathrooms, even if it’s on the fifth floor with no elevator.”
-ly, adj.1
Origin: Facetimed from the bathroom floor.
- With honesty, as in:
“‘You look disgusting, babe,’ and I can hear your laugh echo from the phone in separate rooms of the same apartment. We clutch our stomachs in unison and take turns letting the dog in to lick each of our faces with concern.”
-ingly, adv.1
Origin: The next day
- Shared burden, as in:
“I pretend I’m tough, but you always recover quicker than I do. You manage to drive to Rite-Aid in the morning before work. You always buy that generic brand of Pepto Bismol that tastes five times worse, but you leave it for me outside the bathroom. When I open the door, it stands there, and I see you in its plastic shoulders squared like a Valentine’s Day candygram.”
Winslow Schmelling is a writer from the Sonoran Desert and a graduate of Arizona State University’s MFA program in fiction. She is a ghostwriter, teacher, and ex-professional pizza maker. Her work appears in Welter Review, Tempe Writer’s Forum, Poet’s for Science, and elsewhere.
Image: amazon.com
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