Boys and girls hid in the library stacks or behind the gym and flew at each other with no promise of love or even kindness, tasting one another in clumsly attempts to steal pleasure before they could be hurt or hated.

To desperately hope," I whispered James let out a breath. "To gratefully believe.

I would do anything to stay beside you forever.

Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone.

Books are boring," James said as he wrote. "They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.

The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.

i would court you with passion, if things were different. you'd never get me off your porch swing.