☾It’s strange how the human mind swings back and forth, from one extreme to another. Does truth lie at some point of the pendulum’s swing, at a point where it never rests, not in the dull perpendicular mean where it dangles in the end like a windless flag, but at an angle, nearer one extreme than another? If only a miracle could stop the pendulum at an angle of sixty degrees, one would believe the truth was there. Well, the pendulum swung today and I thought, instead of my own body, of Maurice’s. I thought of certain lines life had put on his face as personal as a line of his writing: I thought of a new scar on his shoulder that wouldn’t have been there if once he hadn’t tried to protect another man’s body from a falling wall. He didn’t tell me why he was in hospital those three days: Henry told me. That scar was part of his character as much as his jealousy. And so I thought, do I want that body to be vapour (mine yes, but his?), and I knew I wanted that scar to exist through all eternity. But could my vapour love that scar? Then I began to want my body that I hated, but only because it could love that scar. We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can even love with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.

☾I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

☾Want to really do this? Russian Roulette, what more than luck can you bet? A prize horse - the rocking home winner, what about my teeth not gold but teeth nonetheless. I wear a watch, this is very important to me, to have the time a glance away, you never know when you might meet the person you will spend the rest of your life with, 30 seconds, stop sweating. Spray some old spice body spray over denim and cotton and your flesh and bone, questions like what about writing that is never published, where is it accounted for? By putting this out there I am looking for something to happen, is it happening? Is the party raging, did everyone put their party hats on? Jungle Juice baby I’m glad it’s you tonight, tomorrow I’ll be chewing dip, spitting out hybrid cars and way to fuck IOS 4 apple, I’m left handed guys. I could use an airport, landing strip right next to my insides, the real sticky stuff. You could use priceline and negotiate a rate, I hope you can make it, all of you, no not all of you, sorry. That’s just the way it goes. I can’t love the idea of everyone. I can’t let you all break my heart. I should have learned my lesson. I’m such an easy target, it’s almost a joke. I fall hard, I fall easy. I mean something when I say it. I’m easy to trick, I’m the perfect pick, this is what I’m best at, believing in people and having them turn out to be liars, bad people, not caring, not unique, not nice, not too thrilled with my actual face and I did get fat, that’s on my but still. This is why I still listen to Third Eye Blind and The Gin Blossoms, I found out about you, we could cut the ties from the lies we’ve been living in, you’re the best I ever had, how is it going to be when you don’t love me anymore? You sign for each prescription. 8 mile was a great movie. All the pain inside amplified by the fact that I can’t get by with my 9-5. Too much for me to wanna stay in one spot, monotony has gotten me to the point. I’m like a snail, I’ve got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot. Success is my only motherfucking option, failure’s not. You can do anything if you set your mind to it man.

☾Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night’s sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn’t hear her husband’s ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren’s will be. But we learn to live in that love.