Poetry is just so emo." he said. "Oh, the pain. The pain. It always rains. In my soul.

At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. 'Till dawn do us part.

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

Did I help you to a fate you didn't want?

That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.

And then we were kissing.....The space around us evaporated, and for a weird moment I rally like my body; this cancer-ruined thing I'd spent years dragging around suddenly seemed worth the struggle.

This is what happens: somebody—girl usually—got a free spirit, doesn't get on too good with her parents. These kids, they're like tied-down helium balloons. They strain against the string and strain against it, and then something happens, and that string gets cut, and they just float away. And maybe you never see the balloon again . . . Or maybe three or four years from now, or three or four days from now, the prevailing winds take the balloon back home . . . But listen, kid, that string gets cut all the time.