But this time it was her other self I saw, not the dark fairy of want but a middle-aged woman, like the woman I am now, plain, chastened, mortal. The
Your father flung his windbreaker over his shoulder and the zipper stung my cheek, the beginnings of retribution, perhaps, for a past that had long ago laid down the invisible blueprint of our future.
I was naked. I was human. I was fallible. I deserved to be forgiven. We all did. I
I had misplaced you, and now I was losing them, too. Then
But also because the London I paint is colored by the pencil I hold, and the pencil I hold wants a picture with an ending we can all bear. Malcolm
He did not often listen when I talked, so I ended up telling him things more than once, after a while not bothering to tell him much at all.
Want like a small dirty creature, waiting all the years of her marriage for a sign. Patrick was not the sign; she herself was, her own blue dress, her tiny waist, her small, round breasts. And her wan...
Some new power had risen in me. All my tight cavities were opening and warning voices were fading. I had only myself to worry about, and if I wanted, I could simply choose not to worry at all.
I came face-to-face with the unwelcome finality of death. What can you do with it? It stops you cold when you think of it; it leaves you no out.
Emme. Like the letter. Like an eclipse. A force of nature that keeps coming around, taking out the lights.
First sight of him at the bar, the shock of him under my ribs.
To LAY. To lie. A lay. A lie. It's a versatile but tricky word, isn't it? To get the lay of the land. To lay down the law. To lay blame. To lie low. To lie down on the job. To let it lie. To lie down...
Such a terrible word, terminate. A word from a brave new world in which only the flawless are allowed to be born.
She moved across the pool deck with a languor, an unabashed sexual energy that made me feel like I was watching porn.
Let’s all throw unhappiness overboard.
It is upon the rubble of ancient history that today stands
How can I be certain I’m not manufacturing a memory to match the evidence? You can’t rely on memory. You can’t rely on ancient artifacts, either, to tell you a story you can live with. You can rely on...
Hope doesn’t like to be beaten down, though, does it? Hope is what gets us through. Hope, and the prayer it wants to become.
Perception is often loath to give up its stranglehold on the mind
Where were all the people I loved? I could feel them, flung about, the distance between us a crushing weight that I myself had put there.