Quality

“Are you very spiritual?” he asked. I hesitated, ill at ease.

“Are you very political?” someone else inquired years ago. I don’t remember my answer: it must have been unclear.

“Are you very religious?” he insists. I hold my breath.

“I can tell anyway,” he adds, “you are very artistic.”

Do I have to be very something? To possess anything in a prominent, remarkable fashion?

“I am very human,” I murmur after a pause. A tad too long of a pause. I’m afraid it sounded horribly banal. If he knew what it took me to become simply that.









Toti O’Brien’s work has appeared in The Harpoon Review, poeticdiversity, Edgar Allan Poet and Litro NY among other journals. She has contributed for a decade to various Italian magazines. She lives in Pasadena, CA. http://totihan.net/writer.html