These people picked you up and played with you and then left you lying in the rain

I closed my eyes to watch tiny dancers like jeweled birds cross the dark screen of my eyelids.

She laughed so easily when she was happy. But also when she was sad.

This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue-people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.

But I knew one more thing. That people w ho denied who they were or where they had been were in the greatest danger.

Kindness was the last thing she needed. She had to stay in the icy place, the numb place, and their warmth threatened to melt her just when she needed the cold.

I love Derrick Brown for the surprise of one word waking up next to another. One moment tender, funny or romantic, the next, visceral, ironic and relevatory-here is the full chaos of life. An amazing talent.