But love, like a mushroom high compared with the buzz from cheap weed, outlasts grief.

Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?

After that we tried thirty-nine times to stand together on the tube until we finally did. It was fun. I liked the falling part, and holding hangs. Relationships were so easy when all you had to work on was standing up together.

A few weeks ago my uncle came over to borrow my dad's socket set and when he asked my dad how he was my dad said oh unexceptional. Living quietly with my disappointments. And how are you

David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic. . . .

Life being what it is, one dreams not of revenge. One just dreams.

Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing.