My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden.

Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning.

Sometimes words drew blood, they cut your tongue, they made you know things you couldn't unknow.

Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more.

You are only worthy of what you prove yourself to be.

Still, she knows one thing for certain: never judge a relationship unless you are the one wrapped up in its arms.

What men yearn for they often destroy.