How memories lie to us. How time coats the ordinary with gold. How it breaks the heart to go back and attempt to re-live them. How crushed we are when we discover that the gold was merely gold-plating thinly coated over lead, chalk and peeling paint.
She killed her sons first. Hammering a long fence nail through each of their hearts. Then, taking an ax, she methodically beheaded each one of her brothers-in-law. Going out to the pens, she drove the livestock into the barn, bolting it shut, and whi...
From the depths of the well I had discovered a light above, and yearned to go up and see what all it shone upon. At last--ah, with what years of toil!--I stood in the perfect day, and beheld the principle of life, the element of religion, the link be...
As I watch Nicholas make his way back to his truck, I know one thing: this boy is going to make my life very interesting. I feel as if a fragment of the old me broke away tonight and disappeared, and I’m finally, truly beginning my new life.
Maybe in a way all living things are like flickering flames in a precarious night, always on the verge of being extinguished. Whether we kindle slowly but steadily, or go out in a brilliant burst of light and color, is our choice. Perhaps the most im...
And I guess I'm the assignment that will put you right with your family?" "Yes." "It's no' going to happen, lass." She turned her head to him. "Then why did you bring me with you tonight?" "Something I've been asking myself.
Please,’ Neil shook the stinging fluid out of his eyes. Don’t beg. You’ll appear weak DO NOT BEG. ‘Please, I’m begging you. Don’t take my bike. It’s all I have left and I ... I ...’ he looked behind him in the direction of the city, �...
With a new found confidence, Briston comes alive. "Then we have to do something. We need to call the police, or the swat team, maybe the military." "Yeah, and why we're at it, why don't we send a prayer up to Heaven and tell the other angels to go ah...
The Builders are building with you in mind, dear citizen, so don’t worry your tiny mind about whether the bricks they are using are going to construct schools or prisons. They won’t tell, and you can’t tell, so just keep watching the news and i...
A blanket could help me tell you I love you. Well, it could if I did, but I don’t, so I’ll just use the blanket to go to sleep on our relationship.
For most of us free-thinking, wild hearts, our relationship with God or the Universe will go through peaks and valleys – transforming into new concepts and beliefs, completely disappearing, at times, only then to instantly explode back into existen...
If I had known things would turn out this way, I would have trained harder. I would have learned to take care of myself. But I guess that's the point, isn't it? You never know what you're going to have to face, so you'd better be prepared.
You look beautiful," Alodia says. I startle at the compliment. Then I smile. "I’m beautiful to the one person who matters." She nods. "Hector’s mouth is going to drop open when he sees you.” “I hope so. But I meant me. I’m beautiful to me.
The way black women say "girl" can be magical. Frankly, I have no solid beliefs about the survival of consciousness after physical death. But if it's going to happen I know what I want to see after my trek toward the light. I want to see a black woma...
I decided I would go with them, but it would be at my father's house that I would eat. I would share his food, and his poverty.
The only way to get to where you want to go is to ruthlessly evaluate your where you are now. The key here is that your biggest obstacle in life is always yourself—not external factors.
He was a priest. Never try to fuck a priest. Even if they're talking about leaving the priesthood. That should be a rule somewhere. A former priest, maybe. And even then I don't know. The thing is, your big competition is God. And if God wants your b...
They both went to opposite sides of the bed, snapped on their bedside lamps and pulled back the cover in a smooth, practiced, synchronized move that proved, depending on Madeline's mood, that they either had the perfect marriage or that they were stu...
That's what I want, that kind of recklessness where the poem is even ahead of you. It's like riding a horse that's a little too wild for you, so there's this tension between what you can do and what the horse decides it's going to do.
I pulled him close. “You can try your best. The only problem is after this is all over with reality is going to be waiting for me.” He took my shirt off and tossed it over his shoulder pulling me down on the couch. He kissed me again, biting at m...
He was going to take a dive into this lake. He just didn’t know it. Cerise rose, finding footing in the soft mud. The water came up to just below her breasts and her wet shirt stuck to her body. William’s gaze snagged on her chest. Yep, keep look...
