--I NEED SOMEONE ON DAYS LIKE THIS, I DO.

…If you could trace my life backwards from today, you’d arrive in a world much colder and thinner.  The younger version of me is a boy who speaks very little.  He’s in fourth grade.  That kid is wary of the other kids, but drawn to the teacher—a woman who reads stories to the class to end every afternoon.  Watch how she reads.  What flies from those pages, if not some kind of sparks?

…Stay silent, stay alive, was the motto back then, and it mostly worked.

…The thing is, it didn’t look like what it felt like on the inside.

…Maybe it’s God I’m wrestling with, or maybe a python has me in its jaws.

…I’m every car that’s ever been idled, a motorcycle gulping its own exhaust, lurching toward open road.

…Some people like a little danger with their tea.  I just prefer it hot.

…If you’re so happy, why do I hear you pacing across your room, night after night?

…The frustrating thing about cages is that you’re trapped but you can see exactly what you want.  You can reach out from the cage, but only so far.

…Sometimes you’ve just got to wake the fuck up, you know?

…When a poem is doing its job, something bends inside you.

…Please give me a listening face. 

…I love being a witness more than a perpetrator.

…The why of things is often complicated and a little slippery.

…Babies are cute because they’re pretty helpless.  You have to love them through their helplessness.

…It is a hell of a thing to miss somebody and to have them miss you back.

…All things considered, I have a reasonable sense of humor in the right circumstances.

…Whoever told you not to look at this is hiding something, because the world is beautiful, haunted, and begging you to receive its offering.

…I knew I was like the other kids until my best friend said, “No, you’re not.”

…Sometimes when a wave of energy is interrupted, it reverses its direction, hits a wall, and turns back with nothing. 

…I am one-half something.  One part stained glass window.  One part waterfall.

…Where’s a nail gun when you need one?

…I, too, have a hand that pushes against a wall, that searches for a seam.

…Yes, I know the Lord’s Prayer, how to change a tire if I have to, how to disappear.

…Everyone knows gears are supposed to turn, but we forget their teeth, that to pull they must bite into each other.

…Sometimes, regardless of your circumstances, you’ve got to say, Hallelujah anyway.

…I know the math, and that’s why I’m always holding onto the hope of tomorrow.