When she smiles, it feels like the first warm day of March-- after an eternity of snow, when you suddenly remember how summer feels on the backs of your bare calves & in the part of your hair.

Peter curled his hands into fists at his sides. 'Kiss me,' he said. She leaned towards him slowly, until her face was too close to be in focus. Her hair fell over Peter's shoulder like a curtain and her eyes closed. She smelled like autumn-like apple cider and slanting sun and the snap of the coming cold. He felt his heart scrambling, caught inside the confines of his own body. Josie's lips landed just on the edge of his, almost his cheek and not quite his mouth. 'I'm glad I wasn't stuck in here alone,' she said shyly, and he tasted the words, sweet as mint on her breath.

His hand is cool on my cheek as he paints a tear beneath my left eye, dark blue and swollen with sorrow.

Things don't always look as they seem.

Why are you doing this to yourself? When something bad happens, why do you have to pick at it until it bleeds all over again?

You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?... A plan.

Who I am, and what I am capable of doing has always managed to surprise me.