I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.

It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too-real chest, making his widower's rememberences that much more convincing and his pain that much more real.

Something having been done just about everywhere just about always is no kind of justification for doing it now.

I realized that your mother couldn't see the emptiness, she couldn't see anything...All of the words I'd written to her over all of those years, had I never said anything to hear at all?

Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.

I am willing to be annoying if that's what was necessary.

Why didn't he say goodbye? I gave myself a bruise. Why didn't he say 'I love you'?