Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words and not one of them can save me.

Where we live in the world is never one place. Our hearts, those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us moons before we are ready for them.

A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn't catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some street corner while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas, pink petals that have never felt loneliness, no matter how slowly they fell.

My mother used to tell me when I went somewhere, "Please leave your foolishness at home." But how could I do that? It was stuck on me.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

The writing of Kathleen McGookey shines more brightly than most fine things we feel pleasure to read. Celebrate it!

I support all people on earth who have bodies like and unlike my body.