This was something she would keep hidden within herself, maybe in place of the knot of pain and anger she had been carrying under her breastbone...a security blanket, an ace up her sleeve. She might never use it, but she would always feel its presence like a swelling secret stone, and that way when she let go of the rage, she would not feel nearly as empty.

When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires.

How could I not have seen this coming, when I looked into your eyes and vowed to be with you forever?

Nobody wants to admit to this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's beause it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someone's ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end. But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.

The ideas choose me, not the other way around.

Sometimes all you need to live one more day is a good reason to stick around.