Junot Díaz: Herring

“Each morning, before Jackie started her studies, she wrote on a clean piece of paper: Tarde venientibus ossa.
To the latecomers are left the bones.”

“You eventually erase her contact info from your phone but not the pictures you took of her in bed while she was naked and asleep, never those.”

“… and when he thought about the way she laughed, as though she owned the air around her, his heart thundered inside his chest, a lonely rada.”

“Here at last is her smile: burn it into your memory; you won't see it often.”

“Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.”

“Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.”

“I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.”

“The thoughts he put in her head. Someone should’ve arrested him for it.”

“She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas.”

“Clavo saca clavo.
Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her.”

“Her last painting was of you, slouching against the front door: only your drowning I-had-a-lousy-Third-World-childhood-and-all-I-got-was-this-attitude eyes recognizable.”

“I put my hand on her knee. I just wish you'd say you love me.”