Spiderlike, I spin mirrors, Loyal to my image.

There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice - patched, retreaded and approved for the road.

All I want is blackness. Blackness and silence.

One night she hid the pink cotton scarf from her raincoat in the pillowcase when the nurse came around to lock up her drawers and closets for the night. In the dark she had made a loop and tried to pull it tight around her throat. But always just as the air stopped coming and she felt the rushing grow louder in her ears, her hands would slacken and let go, and she would lie there panting for breath, cursing the dumb instinct in her body that fought to go on living

…beating time along the edge of thought.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

Masks are the order of the day - and the least I can do is cultivate the illusion that I am gay, serene, not hollow and afraid.