I'm an ex-Catholic priest. I have such a complex relationship to Catholicism. On the one hand, if I called myself a Catholic it would have to be a very unorthodox one, as I just don't believe all of the teachings of the Church. But on the other hand, I'm an educated man because the Catholic Church educated me. It gave me something that is really important to me. So I always think about my faith. I always have it, and sometimes I can't talk about it, and sometimes I can. I am like an adolescent in that way. Teens are asking questions: who is God and what does it mean to have faith?

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.

Words were different when they lived inside of you.

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.

The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter.