“Keeping The City"Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman guardeth in vain" - John F. Kennedy's unspoken words in Dallas on November 23, 1963.Once,in August,head on your chest,I heard wingsbattering up the place,something inside trying to fly outand I was silentand attentive,the watchman.I was your small public,your small audiencebut it was you that was clapping,it was you untying the snarls and knots,the webs, all bloody and gluey;you with your twelve tongues and twelve wingsbeating, wresting, beating, beatingyour way out of childhood,that airless net that fastened you down.Since then I was more silentthough you had gone miles away,tearing down, rebuilding the fortress.I was therebut could do nothingbut guard the citylest it break.I was silent.I had a strange idea I could overhearbut that your voice, tongue, wingbelonged solely to you.The Lord was silent too.I did not know if he could keep you whole,where I, miles away, yet head on your chest,could do nothing. Not a single thing.The wings of the watchman,if I spoke, would hurt the bird of your soulas he nested, bit, sucked, flapped.I wanted him to fly, burst like a missile from your throat,burst from the spidery-mother-web,burst from Woman herselfwhere too many had laid out lightsthat stuck to you and left a burnthat smarted into your middle age.The cityof my choicethat I guardlike a butterfly, useless, uselessin her yellow costume, swirlingswirling around the gates.The city shifts, falls, rebuilds,and I can do nothing.A watchmanshould be on the alert,but never cocksure.And The Lord -who knows what he keepeth?”

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

“You destroy me.""Juliette," he says and he mouths the name, barely speaking at all, and he's pouring molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death."I want you," he says. He says "I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you." He says it like it's a lit cigarette lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says "It's never been a secret. I've never tried to hide that from you. I've never pretended I wanted anything less.""You-you said you wanted f-friendship-""Yes," he says, he swallows, "I did. I do. I do want to be your friend. He nods and I register the slight movement in the air between us. "I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend," he says. "The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette-""No," I gasp. "Don't-don't s-say that-""I want to know where to touch you," he says. "I want to know how to touch you. I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me." I feel his chest rising, falling, up and down and up and down and "Yes," he says. "I do want to be your friend." He says "I want to be your best friend in the entire world.""I want so many things," he whispers. "I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time." His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says "I want this up." He tugs on the waist of my pants and says "I want these down." He touches the tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and says, "I want to feel your skin on fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it's racing because of me, because you want me. Because you never," he says, he breathes, "never want me to stop. I want every second. Every inch of you. I want all of it."And I drop dead, all over the floor."Juliette."I can't understand why I can still hear him speaking because I'm dead, I'm already dead, I've died over and over and over again.He swallows, hard, his chest heaving, his words a breathless, shaky whisper when he says "I'm so-I'm so desperately in love with you-”

“I want to make love to you, Rhone. I want to fill your ass with my penis and fuck you until you love it just as much as I do. I want to suck your dick and eat your balls until your cum coats my tongue and throat. I want you to do the same to me. I want to come inside you, in your mouth, in your ass, on your chest, marking you as mine in a way you can feel even when I’m not by your side. That’s what I want. It’s what I’ve wanted ever since you told me I could have a different, better life and then took the time to care and to show me how to care about myself. I want everything you can give, and I want to offer you everything that I am.”

“I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to understand what has already happened. You do not need a psychiatrist to do this. A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he is just another bird drinking from your misery. My mother, she suffered. She lost her face and tried to hind it. She found only greater misery and finally could not hide that. There is nothing more to understand. that was China. That was what people did back then. They had no choice. they could not speak up. they could not run away. That was their fate.”

“Do you know what my father used to say?" I ask her. "He used to say that songs had a heart. A crescendo that can make all your blood rush from your head to your toes.”