Hour by hour, day by day, life becomes possible.

Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were a part of me. They were my landscape.

Sometimes I nursed starfish alive in jam jars of seawater and watched them grow back lost arms. On this day, this awful birthday of otherness, my rival, somebody else, I flung the starfish against a stone. Let it perish.

I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.

I woke to the sound of rain.

I like people, but to learn about one individual always appeals to me more than anything.

I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy.