Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that's sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.

No bird in a cage ever speaks. What is there to say? The sky is everywhere, churning above its head, blue and endless, calling out to it. But the caged bird can't answer anything except 'I cannot'.

I would always be lonely, but no more alone.

It is scary, sometimes, Tomas admitted. But the scary bits are what make you brave.

Yeah, reflections! The same, but different. Like twins - like blood brothers! And when you need something bad done, like punishment or revenge, you'll just ask me, and I will do it -

My life was pouring out my feet and seeping through cracks in the floor; yet still I knelt and did not move, for fear she'd let go my hands. Let me stay, I wanted to beg: Please don't make me go.

Words on the page are never prisoners of the page