GOOD BONES by Maggie Smith

and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children.

The world is at least fifty percent terrible,

and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird

there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child,

a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake.

Life is short

and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children.

I am trying to sell them the world.

Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones:

This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.