“So I watch my sadness, gleaming in all of its soft pastel glory. And I listen to the arguments against my sanity. ”

“You know what I do? I listen to other people, stumbling about with their half thoughts and half sentences and their clumsy feelings that they can't express, and it hurts me. So I go home and burnish it and polish it and weld it to a rhythmic frame, make the dull colors gleam, mute the garish artificiality to pastels, so it doesn't hurt any more: that's my poem. I know what they want to say, and I say it for them.”

“I do want to believe in love. I want all of its trappings, and if it costs me my sanity and a very good divorce lawyer, so be it.”

“My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulderIt's never over,all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her...It's never over,All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter...It's never over,She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever...”

“I couldn’t help but think about school and everything else ending. I liked standing just outside the couches and watching them—it was a kind of sad I didn’t mind, and so I just listened, letting all the happiness and the sadness of this ending swirl around in me, each sharpening the other. For the longest time, it felt kind of like my chest was cracking open, but not precisely in an unpleasant way.”

“...all my brain could think about was pushing my lips against hers. I wanted to taste them, know how their softness felt against mine...”