Want any of this stuff? Jordan?... Nick?" I didn't answer. Nick?" he asked again. What?" Want any?" No... I just remembered that today's my birthday." I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.

he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.

So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.

All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever; you can't live forever.

He dispensed starlight to casual moths.

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.