We are all punished for the lives we have chosen, in one way or another.

We wanted the freedom to love. We wanted the freedom to choose. Now we have to fight for it.

Most of the time one night blends into the next and weeks blend into weeks and months into other months. And sooner or later we all die. But at the beginning of the night anything’s possible.

Now, after so many years, I understand what the Coldness was and where it came from—this sense that everything is lost, and worthless, and meaningless.

I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.

Funny how time heals. Like that bullet in my ribs. It's there, I know it's there, but I can barely feel it at all anymore.

Poetry isn't like any writing I've ever heard before. I don't understand all of it, just bits of images, sentences that appear half-finished, all fluttering together like brightly colored ribbons in the wind.