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Honesty is a crepe cake - by Grace - in musing

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Anne Carson wrote, “poets (be generous) prefer to conceal the truth beneath strata of irony because this is the look of the truth: layered and elusive.” What is the look of truth? Such a ceremonial word. Truth. Heavy and large and abstract and translucent, and beyond what I know. Truth, broadly, isn’t a subject I’ve thought much on, but the truth between two people—this is a subject everyone has thought on. Words are finicky and subtle, so let’s move past the Carson quote. What is the look of honesty? While the truth is layered and elusive and unknowable, or at least unsayable, honesty is the closest human attempt at truth. Honesty is the abstract concept of truth condensed into concrete communication—into words, into speech, into actions. The most fascinating facet of honesty is when people’s understandings of it diverge. Honesty is about bringing people onto the same page, about melding understanding—yet one person’s honesty can be another’s deceit. Over the years, my relationship to

In a basement somewhere, there’s a quaint little cash-only cafe, cramped and dimly lit, plastered with haphazardly laminated letter sheets explaining various supernatural creatures such as goblins and ogres and nymphs and colorful artsy posters and students with their laptops sprawled on the narrow tables and people squeezing in between the crowded rickety chairs and a chalkboard hanging across from the cash register. The day I walked in, the chalkboard had a competition bracket of the deadliest sins. I dropped the seven, because the bracket had eight, as brackets need. The eighth sin, with…

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