Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.

I have no idea how he knows when I need him. We can go weeks without speaking, and then, when my blue moods threaten to turn black, he will show up and tell me my moods are azure indigo cerulean cobalt periwinkle and suddenly the blue will not seem so dark, more like the color of a noon-bright sky. He brings the sun.

Every two people cause and intersection. Every person alters the world.

There is no such thing as no choice. There is always a choice. The only question is whether it's a bearable one.

How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?

Eventually she fell asleep, but I kept the phone against my ear, lulled by her breathing, and her breathing again in the background. And yes, it felt like home. Like everything belonged exactly where it was.

Self-esteem can be so exhausting. I want to cut my hair, change my clothes, erase the pimple from the near-tip of my nose, and strengthen my upper-arm definition, all in the next hour.