Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear.

It's not the place, I think. It's the people. We'd have all been the same anywhere else.

Disbelief held me down inside my footsteps, making my body heavy but my heart wild.

Shadows of cloud lurked in the water, like holes the sun forgot about.

We expressed love for this dog by ... knowing without showing that we cared for him.

I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted. That's what I wanted myself to be.

All my friends seem to be smart arses. Don't ask me why. Like many things, it is what it is.