Saba used to say there was a difference between bravery and courage. Bravery was doing something dangerous without thinking. Courage was walking into danger, knowing full well the risks.

I'll be your mess,you be mine That was the deal that we had signed I bought a hazmat suit to clean up your waste Gas masks,gloves,to keep us safe But now i'm alone in an empty room Staring down immaculate doom "Messy

I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.

Suddenly, it's all too much. Bryn and the bump watch. Vanessa with my high school yearbook. The idea that nothing's sacred. Everything's fodder. That my life belongs to anyone but me.

It's like the piano and the cello are being poured into my body, the same way the IV and blood transfusions are. And the memories of my life as it was, and the flashes of it as it might be, are coming so fast and furious. I feel like I can no longer keep up with them but they keep coming and everything is colliding, until I cannot take anymore. Until I cannot be like this a second longer.

So are you moving on now? Is that what brought you to the grand metropolis of Valladolid?” “No. The wind just blew me here.” “What? Like a plastic bag?” “I prefer to think of myself as a ship. Like a sailboat.

Whoever said that the past isn't dead had it backward. It's the future that's already dead, already played out.