“I think I can remember
being dead. Many times, in winter,
I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him,
how can I endure the earth?”
“Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me”
“I am tired of having hands
she said
I want wings —
But what will you do without your hands
to be human?
I am tired of human
she said
I want to live on the sun —”
“It is true that there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.”
“The assignment was to fall in love.
The details were up to you.
The second part was
to include in the poem certain words,
words drawn from a specific text
on another subject altogether.”
“The sound of the sea— just memory now.”
“You get on a train, you disappear.
You write your name on the window, you disappear.
There are places like this everywhere,
places you enter as a young girl
from which you never return.”
“I fell asleep in a river, I woke in a river,
of my mysterious
failure to die I can tell you
nothing, neither
who saved me nor for what cause—”
“The truth has always been far too dangerous for the public to know. The truth didn't usually set people free, it just got them crazier. Most people just couldn't handle the truth.”
“ Henry hooked his legs on the branch and flipped over gingerly, until he was hanging upside-down, grinning at Vlad. Then Henry's grin slipped. He fell to the ground several feet below with a thump, crying out as his body made impact. Vlad shimmied down the tree as fast as he could. "Henry ! Are you okay?" Henry sat up, clutching his wounded knee. He looked very much like he was going to start crying any second. A small, thin line of blood oozed from the scrape on his knee. Vlad's tiny fangs shot from his gums. Henry's eyes went wide, his injury all but forgotten. "What are those?" Vlad's small shoulders sank. He'd let his dad down. "They're my fangs." "Vlad, are you a vampire or something?" Henry's eyes were big, and Vlad was certain he saw fear in them. Not as much fear as when Henry had been falling from the tree, but close. He took a deep breath, glancing at the house. Then he sat down in front of Henry and said, "Yeah, Henry. I'm a vampire. But it's a secret. A very, very, very big secret and you can't tell anyone ever.”
“In this crazy future tumbling like an avalanche straight at us, the ambitions of two people didn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
“I take his hand and pull him back to me, stealing another kiss, smiling against his lips as he kisses me back.
And kisses me again.
And then some more.
And I know he is mine. For now, for the rest of our lives, no matter what comes next.”
“Then I did what I should have done to start with. I taught myself to walk.”
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