Paris was a museum displaying exactly itself.

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.

Heartbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken.

He had the feeling that there was something physically behind his eyes, blocking the light.

Remember that day you said you loved me? Remember that? See, you could do that because you're basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn't go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it.

Whenever we got a glimpse, their faces looked indecently revealed, as though we were used to seeing women in veils.

So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.