“I am singing now while Rome burns.”

“Here I amleaving you clues. I am singing now while Romeburns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,my silent night, just mash your lips against me.We are all going forward. None of us are going back.”

“I had a dream about you. We were in the gold roomwhere everyone finally gets what they want.You said Tell me about your books, your visions madeof flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This isthe Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take youthere. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugarcube…We were in the gold room where everyonefinally gets what they want, so I said What do youwant, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I amleaving you clues. I am singing now while Romeburns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,my silent night, just mash your lips against me.We are all going forward. None of us are going back.”

“I wanted to hurt youbut the victory is that I could not stomach it. We haveswallowed him up, they said. It’s beautiful. It really is.I had a dream about you. We were in the gold roomwhere everyone finally gets what they want.You said Tell me about your books, your visions madeof flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This isthe Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take youthere. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugarcube… We were in the gold room where everyonefinally gets what they want, so I said What do youwant, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I amleaving you clues. I am singing now while Romeburns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,my silent night, just mash your lips against me.We are all going forward. None of us are going back.”

“For a while I thought I was the dragon.I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was the princess,cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you withconfidence but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero.You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!”

“Here I am in a rabbit run, here I am in a valley of pine, waiting for you to find me. I could pretend I’m speaking to everyone—assume a middle distance and transcend myself—but I’m taking to you and you know it.”

“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”