Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.

During a warm winter rain ... the basins of her collarbones collected water.

Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.

We listened to them, but it was clear they'd received too much therapy to know the truth.

The zipper opened all the way down our spines.

Bubble gum angels swooped from top margins or scraped their wings between teeming paragraphs, maidens with golden hair dripped sea blue tears into the books spine, grape-colored whales spouted blood around a newspaper item (pasted in) listing arrivals to the endangered spieces list. Six hatchlings cried from shattered shells near an entry made on Easter. Cecilia had filled the pages with a profusion of colors and curlicues, candyland ladders and striped shamrocks.