Live free or die. Four words. Thirteen letters. Ridges, bumps, swirls under my fingertips. Another story. We cling tightly to it, and our belief turns it to truth.

It's as though the words are trapped, buried under past fears, past lives, like fossils compressed under layers of dirt.

Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.

I know what the problem is, of course. The disorientation, the distraction, the difficulty focusing - all classic Phase One signs of deliria. But I don't care. If pneumonia felt this good I'd stand out in the snow in the winter with bare feet and no coat, or march into the hospital and kiss pneumonia patients

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

Requiem has been controversial because people dont feel I gave it closure.

I feel a flash of grief so intense it almost makes me cry out: not for what I lost, but for the chances I missed.