I never went to Albuquerque expecting to find love. I thought it had found me there, followed me home. I never came home expecting to lose love in the space of one brief telephone call. Is it always so short-lived?

In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses. At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home. And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.

But hey, I'm not exactly sold on the idea that love is, in fact, real. Will it find me one day, overtake me, infiltrate my life like sunlight snakes through the cold of morning? Can love thaw me? will it ever?

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

Is it wrong to leave relative security in favor of unknown risk at the side of someone you love?

The more I think about it, the more I believe there has to be a subtle yet satisfying method of revenge.

Torch every book. Burn every page. Char every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.