Health + Youth

don’t move don’t talk out of time don’t think don’t worry everything’s just fine just fine don’t grab don’t clutch don’t hope for too much don’t breathe don’t achieve don’t grieve without leave don’t check just balance on the fence don’t answer don’t ask don’t try and make sense don’t whisper don’t talk don’t run if you can walk don’t cheat compete don’t listen to the One beat don’t travel by train don’t eat don’t spill don’t piss in the drain don’t make a will don’t fill out any forms don’t compensate don’t cower don’t crawl don’t come around late don’t hover at the gate don’t take it on board don’t fall on your sword just play another chord if you feel you’re getting bored

don’t change your brand don’t listen to the band don’t gape don’t ape don’t change your shape have another grape

don’t plead don’t bridle don’t shackle don’t grind don’t curve don’t swerve lie die serve don’t theorize realize polarize chance dance dismiss apologize don’t strive don’t lie don’t try imply detain explain start again don’t drive don’t cling don’t hoax don’t peak freak don’t leak don’t speak don’t project don’t connect protect don’t expect suggest don’t project don’t connect protect don’t expect suggest don’t struggle don’t jerk don’t collar don’t work don’t wish don’t fish don’t teach don’t reach don’t borrow don’t break don’t fence don’t steal don’t pass don’t press don’t try don’t feel don’t touch don’t dive don’t suffer don’t rhyme don’t fantasize don’t rise don’t fall don’t project don’t connect protect don’t expect suggest don’t project don’t connect protect don’t expect suggest

“When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more grayish each one than what had come before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he’d wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child had led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.”
—Cormac McCarthy

“A ten-hour flight from Paris to Miami, and then the layover, and then another five to Mexico City, to Tenochtitlán, where the Aztecs cut out hearts and burned them, still beating, on the altar and rolled the bodies down the steps of the pyramid, and the smoke of burnt blood swirled in the blazing New World sun. Peyote, mystery rituals. Blood running down the pyramid steps. An eagle perched on a cactus with a rattlesnake thrashing in its mouth. Worship of birds, worship of snakes, worship of the sun, worship of water, worship of human blood, and worship of death. Mexico City.”
—Benjamin Hale, The Paris Review

“Finally they got the Singles problem under control, they made it scientific. They opened huge Sex Centers—you could simply go and state what you want and they would find you someone who wanted that too. You would stand under a sign saying I Like to Be Touched and Held and when someone came and stood under the sign saying I Like to Touch and Hold they would send the two of you off together.

“At first it went great. A steady stream of people under the sign I Like to Give Pain paired up with a steady stream of people from under I Like to Receive Pain. Foreplay Only—No Orgasm found its adherents, and Orgasm Only—No Foreplay matched up its believers. A loyal Berkeley, California, policeman stood under the sign Married Adults, Lights Out, Face to Face, Under a Sheet, because that’s the only way it was legal in Berkeley—but he stood there a long time in his lonely blue law coat. And the man under I Like to Be Sung to While White Bread Is Kneaded on My Stomach had been there weeks without a reply.

“Things began to get strange. The Love Only—No Sex was doing fine; the Sex Only—No Love was doing well, pair after pair walking out together like wooden animals off a child’s ark, but the line for 38D or Bigger was getting unruly, shouting insults at the line for 8 Inches or Longer, and odd isolated signs were springing up everywhere, Retired Schoolteacher and Parakeet—No Leather; One Rm/No Bath/View of Sausage Factory.

“The din rose in the vast room. The line under I Want to Be Fucked Senseless was so long that portable toilets had to be added and a minister brought for deaths, births, and marriages on the line. Over under I Want to Fuck Senseless—no one, a pile of guns. A hollow roaring filled the enormous gym. More and more people began to move over to Want to Be Fucked Senseless. The line snaked around the gym, the stadium, the whole town, out into the fields. More and more people joined it, until Fucked Senseless stretched across the nation in a huge wide belt like the Milky Way, and since they had to name it they named it, they called it the American Way.”
—Sharon Olds, The Paris Review