It is so hard to leave-until you leave.

I came to the conclusion a while ago that there is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another. It was, for a time, what kept me going: Each morning, for a little while, I got to feel the weight of the yoke on my back as I pulled the ancient cart of my species.

I can't imagine us saying these things to each other out loud. But even if I can't imagine hearing these words, I can imagine living them. I don't even picture it. Instead I'm in it. How I would feel with him here. That peace. It would be so happy, and it makes me sad because it only exists in words.

That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.

Walt Whitman is HOT! I mean, that guy could sound his barbaric yawps over the roofs of my world any time.

Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds. Ben, getting you a date to prom is so hard that the American government believes the problem cannot be solved with diplomacy, but will instead require force.

We got off at the next exit, quietly, and, switching drivers, we walked in front of the car. We met and I held him, my hands balled into tight fists around his shoulders, and he wrapped his short arms around me and squeezed tight, so that I felt the heaves of his chest as we realized over and over again that we were still alive. I realized it in waves and we held on to each other crying and I thought, 'God we must look so lame,' but it doesn't matter when you have just now realized, all the time later, that you are still alive.