I should’ve been furious, but for some reason I wasn’t. Maybe because I knew he was telling the truth. Maybe because Voron left me just like that, without the much-needed explanations. Maybe because things I had learned about him since his death ...
The poets say some moths will do anything out of love for a flame [...] The moth takes off again, and we both step back, because he's circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, smacking into the wall on each round. He circles lo...
The hallway led me to the stairway of a million steps. My leg screamed in protest. I sighed and started climbing. I just had to keep from limping. Limping showed weakness, and I didn’t need any enterprising, career-motivated shapeshifters trying to...
How can you stand touching her?” my sister blurted, staring at our clasped hands. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I seized on the change of topic. “These gloves are specialized rubber. They block the current.” Gretchen’s gaze traveled over Vlad, d...
He swallowed and shifted his weight a little uneasily, and then said, very quietly, his lips almost touching hers, 'Promise me you'll marry me. Not now. Someday. Because I need to know." Claier felt a flutter inside, like a bird trying to fly, and a ...
But God's love is big enough to touch any life, to make light out of any darkness. Jesus came that we might have life, so that no more would we have to die in depression, anger or pain. He loved people back to life. He would go anywhere, talk to anyo...
No respect for beauty - that was characteristic of today's society. The work of the great masters were at most employed as ironic references or in advertising. Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam " where you see a pair of jeans in place of the spark...
Your hair," repeated Dimitri. His eyes were wide, almost awestruck. "Your hair is beautiful." I didn't think so, not in its current state. of course, considering we were in a dark alley filled with bodies, the choices were kind of limited. "You see? ...
She looked like she believed in something, or wanted to, and I hoped to hell it wasn’t God, not in the way The Dad believes, because all that does is make him forced and desperate. No, it was something else, not just that I saw a pretty girl and ju...
The heat intensified. My emotions were spinning out of control. The euphoria was maddening. Out of pure instinct, I pulled away and leaned against the wall, unable to find enough air to breathe. The more I pulled away, the strong the raw ache inside ...
…the two chatting surreptitiously as a procession of priests, musicians, and locals dressed like demons paraded down the street: the men hoisting erect wooden phalluses, the women embracing smaller carved penises swathed in red paper, the spectator...
Day 72 I remember oranges and you don’t mind me leaving the queue momentarily to find some. When you say, Of course, you reach for my arm in sympathy and recognition. This may be the thing that breaks me today, that stops me in my tracks before dri...
Change is not always a good thing. What I need is not change from one thing to another but transformation from who I am into who I was meant to become. Only when God's transforming power touches me can I begin to live the simpler, freer, fresher, mor...
I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand - through rational thought - that which cannot be understood at all. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground, unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a dif...
I invited a few people to help celebrate your birthday," Cameron said sheepishly. She threw up her hands. "Surprise." "We sort of come with the package," Collin explained. "Think of it as a collective gift from all of us to you: five bona fide annoyi...
She is nine, beloved, as open-faced as the sky and as self-contained. I have watched her grow. As recently as three or four years ago, she had a young child's perfectly shallow receptiveness; she fitted into the world of time, it fitted into her, as ...
The great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground sha...
Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with...
Please, Noah, I don't want to do this wrong. Tell me how to make you feel good." He shifted so that his body rested beside mine, his leg and arm still draped over me. I felt small under his warmth and strength. His chocolate-brown eyes softened. "Bei...
She felt the glide of his hair as he lowered his head to study the zipper on her skirt. Her imagination supplied other places his hair could touch, and she drew in her breath. He carefully pulled down the zipper, then pulled it back up. After several...
After the fierce midsummer all ablaze Has burned itself to ashes, and expires In the intensity of its own fires, There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze. So after Love has led us, till he tires O...
