Is there any other way to be? I mean, this is it. This is my body, my soul; I gotta live with it. I'd better get comfortable. I plan on taking it for a long ride.

Who needs a stupid grampa-loving, book-reading, good-smelling boy who I like to talk to?

Everyone got older but forgot to grow up.

I want to make my mark,' he says. But what target, I wonder, are you going to hit?

I smile a lot. I heard someone say once that it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, so i'm trying it out.

Silent is the ruined land. Man is brutal and the rain does not wash away the pain or rid the distant memory. It makes it glisten.

I took that smile and I put it right where the hole in my chest was. It was better than coffee, or chocolate, or a perfect pirouette. I clutched it and held it tight.