Pink is female - but why? Are girls any more pink than boys? Are boys any more blue than girls? It's something that has been sold to us, mostly so other things can be sold to us.

you ask me what I'm looking for, and I outline you. you don't recognize the shape, offer other names. you say my time will come, and I hope.

Most people, I've noticed, are instinctively harsh to strangers. They expect every approach to be an attack, every question to be an interruption.

In school, the year was the marker. Fifth grade. Senior year of high school. Sophomore year of college. Then after, the jobs were the marker. That office. This desk. But now that school is over and I've been working at the same place in the same office at the same desk for longer than I can truly believe, I realize: You have become the marker. This is your era. And it's only if it goes on and on that will have to look for other ways to identify the time.

I wake up feverish, sore, uncomfortable. Is it sickness or is it heartbreak? I can't tell. The thermometer says I'm normal, but I'm clearly not.

His books are kept on freestanding shelves hung at different angles on a sea-green wall. They defy gravity, as good books should.

She has been hanging on to the hope of him for so long that she doesn't realize there isn't anything left to hope for.