Manifesting Matt Damon

Egg whites and chilaquiles decorate my plate, Matt Damon sits across from me at the Bacara. His smile is crooked, cracked, but blimming Bostonion perfection. He’s having the benedict with crab cakes, at $32. My fork jabs a bite; spits out the blue lump crab meat. It’s an East Coast thing he says, the seafood and breakfast thing. But when his phone rings, he kisses my cheek, stands up, and secretly speaks to his other life, other wife. The one he said vows to, promising to wash his own dirty socks, to never stop telling her she’s bellisima. But I’m the one he calls pretty and fine. After the phone call, he tells me he’ll see me after class, after Italian Cinema. When I graduate, I’ll make plans to find him, keep him. We’ll have our own vows of who’ll scoop the dog shit and our own bedroom that isn’t shapeshifting every time we collapse on the bed. I know this because it says so on my vision board: I’m manifesting that shit.


COURTNEY LUND O'NEIL is a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State University. She received her MFA from UC Riverside and is a California native. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Guardian, Harper's Bazaar, and elsewhere. In 2020, she's embarking on a yearlong journey of discovering wonder every day, which you can follow along here. Say hi on Twitter or Instagram, she’ll say hi back.