Words like passion and ecstasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what's on the other side, and everyone has a story to tell os a woman or a brothel or an opium night or a war. We fear it. We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much.

I wanted to cause trouble, but I know now it stays with you.

There are only three possible endings -aren't there? - to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That's it. All stories end like that.

What are you that makes me feel thus? Who are you for whom time has no meaning?

What I wanted to do was to fasten my index finger and thumb at the bolts of your collar bone, push out, spread the web of my hand until it caught against your throat. You asked me if I wanted to strangle you. No, I wanted to fit you, not just in the obvious ways but in so many indentations.

There are so many separate selves; no one who writes creatively hasn't felt that.

A bridge is a meeting place . . . a possibility, a metaphor.