Being in love, she concluded, is simply a presentation of our pasts to another individual, mostly packages so unwieldy that we can no longer manage the loosened strings alone.

They hadn't much faith in travel, nor a great belief in a change of scene as a panacea for spiritual ills; they were simply glad to be going.

We walked at night towards a cafe blooming with Japanese lanterns and I followed your white shoes gleaming like radium in the damp darkness. Rising off the water, lights flickered an invitation far enough away to be interpreted as we liked; to shimmer glamourously behind the silhouette of retrospective good times when we still believed in summer hotels and the philosophies of popular songs.

Look closer and you'll see something extraordinary, mystifying, something real and true. We have never been what we seemed.

I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life. I love you.

We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.

I believed I was a salamander, and it seems I am nothing but an impediment.