Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.

When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They're gone. All because I was deathly afraid of being forgotten. And then came the regret. The worst things of all worst things.

We referenced fictional characters as if they were people to learn from. As if real-life people were too nebulous, too private and unreal for us to understand.

I'm home and safe and filled with the comfort of being somewhere I've already been. The ruckus of homecoming is brutally enjoyable and everyone makes me feel like a champion. And all I had to do was stay away long enough.

Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.

It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.

If our greatest fear is to sink away alone and unremembered, the brutality that time will inflict upon each of us will always run stronger than any river's murky waves.