I set my toothbrush down, then leaned into the mirror and stared into my own eyes. I could feel myself disintegrating inside myself like a past-bloom flower in the wind. Every time I moved a muscle, another petal of me blew away. Please, I thought. Please.

Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it's very hard work.

Real love moves freely in both directions. Don't waste your time on anything else.

I could go back in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go.

My mom said there's a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there or not. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.

What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.