I was not abused; most people weren’t. But I was—we all have been—marked by fallible people, since there is no other kind.

But (as only an addict would say), pale as I am, tepid as is my pulse, the ten seconds are worth it.

ember to blow on and then mock its ready blush?

Though you cannot rescale yourself, though you cannot go home, you may never know yourself better than when you are about to float, white on a dark streak of lake, breathing like a beast.

Adam untouched by the myths of brutality of human love, gazing naively on an Eve uncontrollably sullied by her historical moment.

feel that the noises of our bodies, the texture of our arches and thrusts, are too precious to escape the notice of another?

When nature got too close to humans, it seemed to fester with secrets about how we were all one breath away from falling down and letting the roots of a tree or that stifling network of grass climb over us. And so, momentarily having the upper hand, we cut it, hemmed it, powdered it, and pinned it up.

My biggest fear is choosing wrongly and having regrets from which I cannot recover. Everything is very, very heavy when you’re alone and ponderous and wary and you don’t know anymore whom to please or how to do it.

writing it because I’m never convinced I’ve figured it out. We are not tightly woven, plot-driven novels. We are all just small collections of events, impressions, moods, beliefs, which, in shards, we call our selves.