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The Assumption Of The Word Reunion Is That, Once You're Together Again, You Are United. Two As One. Pulling Close To Someone Is Only A Temporary Symbol. It's The Way You Breathe With Each Other That's The Telltale Sign.

-David Levithan

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The Assumption Of The

David Levithan

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The Assumption Of The Word Reunion Is That, Once You're Together Again, You Are United. Two As One. Pulling Close To Someone Is Only A Temporary Symbol. It's The Way You Breathe With Each Other That's The Telltale Sign.

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Healthy, Adj. There Are Times When I'm Alone That I Think, This Is It. This Is Actually The Natural State. All I Need Are My Thoughts And My Small Acts Of Creation And My Ability To Go Or Do Whatever I Want To Go Or Do. I Am Myself, And That Is The Point. Pairing Is A Social Construction. It Is By No Means Necessary For Everyone To Do It. Maybe I'm Better Like This. Maybe I Could Live My Life In My Own World, And Then Simply Leave It When It's Time To Go.

It Doesn't Have To Be On Valentine's Day. It Doesn't Have To Be By The Time You Turn Eighteen Or Thirty-three Or Fifty-nine. It Doesn't Have To Conform To Whatever Is Usual. It Doesn't Have To Be Kismet At Once, Or Rhapsody By The Third Date. It Just Has To Be. In Time. In Place. In Spirit. It Just Has To Be.

There Is A Part Of Childhood That Is Childish, And A Part That Is Sacred. Suddenly We Are Touching The Sacred Part -- Running To The Shoreline, Feeling The First Cold Burst Of Water On Our Ankles, Reaching Into The Tide To Catch At Shells Before They Ebb Away From Our Fingers. We Have Returned To A World That Is Capable Of Glistening, And We Are Wading Deeper Within It.

I Wish I Could Remember The Moment When I Was A Kid And I Discovered That The Letters Linked Into Words, And That The Words Linked To Real Things. What A Revelation That Must Have Been. We Don't Have The Words For It, Since We Hadn't Yet Learned The Words. It Must Have Been Astonishing, To Be Given The Key To The Kingdom And See It Turn In Our Hands So Easily.

Do Not Just Seek Happiness For Yourself. Seek Happiness For All. Through Kindness. Through Mercy.

Love Is Tied To Truth. I Think Of Them As Unhappily Conjoined Twins.

Even When I Detach, I Care. You Can Be Separate From A Thing And Still Care About It. If I Wanted To Detach Completely, I Would Move My Body Away. I Would Stop The Conversation Midsentence. I Would Leave The Bed. Instead, I Hover Over It For A Second. I Glance Off In Another Direction. But I Always Glance Back At You.

Sometimes The Space Between Knowing What To Do And Actually Doing It Is A Very Short Walk. Other Times It Is An Impossible Expanse.

This Is The Trap Of Having Something To Live For: Everything Else Seems Lifeless.

How Sad It Must Be For You To Be Nothing More Than A Hollow Statue, To Have Your Tomb Preserved And Your Story Forgotten.

I Don't Want To Steal Anybody's Story. I Very Much Want To Use The Stories That I Hear To Get Lost In My Mind, To Tell A Larger Story.

Danger Comes In Many Forms, I Suppose. For Some People, It Might Be Jumping Off A Bridge Or Climbing Impossible Moutains. For Others, It Could Be A Tawdry Love Affair Or Telling Off A Mean-looking Bus Driver Because He Doesn't Like To Stop For Noisy Teenagers. It Could Be Cheating At Cards Or Eating A Peanut Even Though You're Allergic. For Me, Danger Might Be Getting Out From The Protective Cloak Of My Family And Venturing Into The World More Of My Own, Even Though I Don't Know What- Or Who- Awaits Me.

How Do You Commemorate A Year? A Paper Anniversary, But We Are The Words Written Down, Not The Paper.

They Never Played Games With Each Other, They Never Had Tow Worry Where They Stood, Because If Either Of Them Had A Moment Of Wavering, The Other Would Say I Love You And Would Mean It And All Doubts Were Forgiven Because In This One Case It Was Found That Love Conquers All.

I Have To Cross The River Of Extreme Awkwardness In Order To Get To The Paradise On The Other Side.

If You Zoom Close-if You Get Really Close To Someone, If You Really Get Close To Yourself-then You Lose The Other Person, You Lose Yourself Entirely. You Get So Close You Can't See Anything Anymore.

Losing Yourself

When I Say, "be My Lover", I Don't Mean, "let's Have An Affair." I Don't Mean "sleep With Me." I Don't Mean, "be My Secret." I Want Us To Go Back Down To That Root. I Want You To Be The One Who Loves Me. I Want To Be The One Who Loves You.

It Won't Be A Normal Life-i Know That. But It Will Be A Life. A Life Together.

I Am So Used To Hints And Mixed Messages, Saying Things That Might Mean What They Sort Of Sound Like They Mean. Games And Contests, Roles And Rituals, Talking In Twelve Languages At Once So The True Words Won't Be So Obvious. I Am Not Used To A Plainspoken, Honest Truth.

This Is What Love Does: It Makes You Want To Rewrite The World. It Makes You Want To Choose The Characters, Build The Scenery, Guide The Plot. The Person You Love Sits Across From You, And You Want To Do Everything In Your Power To Make It Possible, Endlessly Possible. And When It’s Just The Two Of You, Alone In A Room, You Can Pretend That This Is How It Is, This Is How It Will Be.

There Is The Sudden. There Is The Eventual. And In Between, There Is The Living.

I Try To Convince Myself That It's The Alcohol Talking. But Alcohol Can't Talk. It Just Sits There. It Can't Even Get Itself Out Of The Bottle.

All I Get Is Tomorrow.

But I Think We Both Knew, Even Then, That What We Had Was Something Even More Rare, And Even More Meaningful. I Was Going To Be His Friend, And Was Going To Show Him Possibilities. And He, In Turn, Would Become Someone I Could Trust More Than Myself.

There Are Times I Think Of Us All And I Wish We Were Back In Second Grade. Not Really That Young. But I Wish It Felt Like Second Grade. I’m Not Saying Everyone Was Friends Back Then. But We All Got Along. There Were Groups, But They Didn’t Really Divide. At The End Of The Day, Your Class Was Your Class, And You Felt Like You Were A Part Of It. You Had Your Friends And You Had The Other Kids, But You Didn’t Really Hate Anyone Longer Than A Couple Of Hours. Everybody Got A Birthday Card. In Second Grade, We Were All In It Together. Now We’re All Apart.

When Things Break, It's Not The Actual Breaking That Prevents Them From Getting Back Together Again. It's Because A Little Piece Gets Lost -- The Two Remaining Ends Couldn't Fit Together Even If They Wanted To. The Whole Shape Has Changed.

Do You Know When You Cross Against Traffic? You Look Down The Street And See A Car Coming, But You Know You Can Get Across Before It Gets To You. So Even Though There’s A Don’t Walk Sign, You Cross Anyway. And There’s Always A Split Second When You Turn And See That Car Coming, And You Know That If You Don’t Continue Moving, It Will All Be Over. That’s How I Feel A Lot Of The Time. I Know I’ll Make It Across. I Always Make It Across. But The Car Is Always There, And I Always Stop To Watch It Coming.

Because Sometimes You Just Have To Dance Like A Madman In The Self-help Section Of Your Local Bookstore.

Need Is Never A Good Basis For Any Relationship. It Has To Be Much More Than That.

A Year. A Thousand Kisses. And Now A Thousand One, A Thousand Two. There Are So Many Other Place We Could Have Ended Up, But I Have To Believe None Of Them Would Have Felt This Right. "all I Want Is You" Is Not Entirely True. I Want So Much More, And With You I Think I Can Get It.

He Is Much Stronger Than I Think I Am. He Is Mischievous, Outgoing, Ready To Soar Through The Clouds, While I Often Feel Like The Cloud Itself.

Part Of Love Is Letting A Person Be Who They Want To Be

It Scares Me How Hard It Is To Remember Life Before You. I Can't Even Make The Comparisons Anymore, Because My Memories Of That Time Have All The Depth Of A Photograph. It Seems Foolish To Play Games Of Better And Worse. It's Simply A Matter Of Is And Is No Longer.

When I Am With You, There Is Nowhere Else I'd Rather Be. And I Am A Person Who Always Wants To Be Somewhere Else.

You Like Him Because He's A Lost Boy. Believe Me, I've Seen It Happen Before. But Do You Know What Happens To Girls Who Love Lost Boys? They Become Lost Themselves. Without Fail.

This Is As Much A Part Of My Story As Anything Else. Friendship Is Love As Much As Any Romance.

Anchor, V.: I Drift, I Drift, I Drift, You Stay.

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There Are Few Things Harder Than Being Born Into The Wrong Body.

She Asked Me What Was Wrong, And I Told Her I Had To End It. She Was Surprised, And Asked My Why I Thought So. I Told Her It Wasn't A Thought, More A Feeling, Like I Couldn't Breathe And Knew I Had To Get Some Air. It Was A Survival Instinct, I Told Her. She Said It Was Time For Dinner. Then She Sat Me Down And Told Me Not To Worry. She Said Moments Like This Were Like Waking Up In The Middle Of The Night: You're Scared, Your'e Disoriented, And You're Completely Convinced You're Right. But Then You Stay Awake A Little Longer And You Realize Things Aren't As Fearful As They Seem.

What A Strange Phrase — –not Seeing Other People. As If It’s Been Constructed To Be A Lie. We See Other People All The Time. The Question Is What We Do About It.

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I Notice You, I Want To Say. Even When No One Else Does, I Do. I Will.

There Comes A Time When The Body Takes Over The Life. There Comes A Time When The Body’s Urges, The Body’s Needs, Dictate The Life. You Have No Idea You Are Giving The Body The Key. But You Hand It Over. And Then It’s In Control. You Mess With The Wiring And The Wiring Takes Charge.

You Could Be The Leaf That Never Falls From The Tree You Could Be The Sun That Never Leaves The Sky This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending This Might Be A Reason To Try

It's You. You Deserve This. There Is A Reason This Is Happening To You.

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That Air. The Air Afterwards. I Wanted To Breathe It In. It Felt Right To Breathe It In. Because We Were Breathing Them In, Weren't We? And The Building. We Were Breathing It All In. And I Thought, There's A Part Of This That's Actually A Part Of Me Now. I Now Have That Responsibility. I Am Alive, And I Am Breathing, And I Can Do The Things This Dust Can't Do.

As If When Someone Close To Us Dies, We Momentarily Trade Places With Them, In The Moment Right Before. And As We Get Over It, We’re Really Living Their Life In Reverse, From Death To Life, From Sickness To Health.

So What Else Can I Tell You?" I Asked. "i Mean, To Get You To Reveal Lily To Me.

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This Is The Hard Part About Having Best Friends That I Feel No Attachment To -- I Don't Give Them Any Benefit Of The Doubt. And Being Best Friends Is Always About The Benefit Of The Doubt.

Love Is So Painful, How Could You Ever Wish It On Anybody? And Love Is So Essential, How Could You Ever Stand In Its Way?

Its A Fine Line Between Love And Stalking.

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We Didn't Believe In Fate, But We Believed In Serendipity. We Felt Very Lucky.

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After Tiny Has Tried Ballerina Pose, Swing-batter-batter Pose, Pump-up-the-jam Pose, And Top-of-the-mountain-sound-of-music Pose In The Reflection Of The Bean, He Walks Us To A Bench Overlooking Lake Shore Drive.

Hubris, N. Every Time I Call You Mine, I Feel Like I'm Forcing It, As If Saying It Can Make It So. As If I'm Reminding You, And Reminding The Universe: Mine. As If That One Word From Me Could Have That Kind Of Power.

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That's The Question, Isn't It?" You Said One Night. "does Death Bring Freedom, Or Is It The End Of Freedom?

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So I Said I Wanted You To Stay, Even Though Nothing Could Stay The Same.

He’ll Have To Prove It To You. Every Day, He’ll Have To Prove He’s Worthy Of You. And If He Doesn’t, That’s It. But I Think He Will.

Little Less Than A Promise, And A Little More Than A Chance.

Enlightenment Is Scary. Sometimes Things Look Better In The Dark.

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But I Want To Feel Like Life Matters. I Had Something Real With You, But Then The Realness Scared Me. I Decided To Go For Other Things Instead.

Breathing, N You Had Asthma As A Child, Had To Carry Around An Inhaler. But When You Grew Older, It Went Away. You Could Run For Miles And It Was Fine. Sometimes I Worry That This Is Happening To Me In Reverse. The Older I Get, The More I Lose My Ability To Breathe.

I Was Horribly Bookish, To The Point Of Coming Right Out And Saying It, Which I Knew Was Not Socially Acceptable. I Particularly Loved The Adjective Bookish, Which I Found Other People Used About As Often As Ramrod Or Chum Or Teetotaler.

Why Do We Feel The Need To Disconnect In Order To Connect?

Serrated, Adj. And You Said, "i'm Not Sure We Can.

If You Want To Live Within The Definition Of Your Own Truth, You Have To Choose To Go Through The Initially Painful And Ultimately Comforting Process Of Finding It.

I Know There Are Epic Tales Of Romance, Where Love Means You're Supposed To Die. Where It's All About Sacrifice. But I Don't Want To Die. I Don't Want Stephen To Die. I'm Looking For The Scenario Where We Both Get To Live. Where We Can Continue This Marvel That Is Love And Discovery And Trust.

Dash Is For Sure Straight!" Boomer Announced. "he Has A Super-pretty Ex-girlfriend Named Sofia, Who I Think He Still Has A Thing For, And Also, In Seventh Grade, There Was A Game Of Spin The Bottle And It Was My Turn And I Spun And It Landed At Dash, But He Wouldn't Let Me Kiss Him.

We Do Not Start As Dust. We Do Not End As Dust. We Make More Than Dust. That's All We Ask Of You. Make More Than Dust.

Why Won't They Leave Me Alone? Don't They Realize I Have A Tinder Heart And A Paper Body And That Any Spark Will Turn Me Straight To Ash?

Things Rarely Get Fixed The Way They Need To Be.

Because When Something Happens, She's The Person I Want To Tell. The Most Basic Indicator Of Love.

Deep Down? That Sounds Like Settling To Me. You Shouldn't Have To Venture Deep Down In Order To Get To Love.

If I'm Not Telling You Something, It's For A Reason. Just Because You Trust Me, It Doesn't Mean I Have To Automatically Trust You. Trust Doesn't Work Like That.

No, Really,' I Said. 'i Think She's Great. And I Honestly Like Her About Twenty More Times Now Than I Did When We Were Dating. But Love Needs To Have A Future. And Sofia And I Don't Have A Future. We've Just Had A Good Time Sharing The Present, That's All.

I Don’t Want You To Think I Got Through This Undamaged, Okay? But I’m Learning To Live With It. Because Otherwise, The Damage Is All You Are.

Family, Like Arsenic, Works Best In Small Doses...unless You Prefer To Die.

I Have Taken Advantage Of Other People's Weaknesses In Order To Cover My Own.

Love Weaves Itself From Hundreds Of Threads.

In My Experience, Desire Is Desire, Love Is Love.

I Love You-i Do-but I Am Afraid Of Making That Love Too Important. Because You're Always Going To Leave Me, A. We Can't Deny It. You're Always Going To Leave.

I Am Made For Running. Because When You Run, You Could Be Anyone. You Hone Yourself Into A Body, Nothing More Or Less Than A Body. You Respond As A Body, To The Body. If You Are Racing To Win, You Have No Thoughts But The Body's Thoughts, No Goals But The Body's Goals. You Obliterate Yourself In The Name Of Speed. You Negate Yourself In Order To Make It Past The Finish Line.

The Tenderness Between Two People Can Turn The Air Tender, The Room Tender, Time Itself Tender. As I Step Out Of Bed And Slip On An Oversize Shirt, Everything Around Me Feels Like It's The Temperature Of Happiness.

It Was The Most Amazing Feeling In The World. To Know That Something Right Happened, And To Know That It Had Happened Not Through Luck Or Command But Simply Because It Was Right.

These Words Are Now Mine, But Soon They’ll Be Ours.

You Are So Close, And I Can’t Reach You.

School Is School-she Wants It To Be Over, But She's Afraid Of It Being Over, Because Then She'll Have To Figure Out What Comes Next.

And I'm Moved, It's So Beautiful. Not What I Wrote, But To Have It Given Back Like This. To Have Her Remember The Words And The Tune. To Hear It In Her Voice.

Every Two People Cause And Intersection. Every Person Alters The World.

It Was A Mistake," You Said. But The Cruel Thing Was, It Felt Like The Mistake Was Mine, For Trusting You.

I Find My Greatest Strengths In Wanting Ti Be Strong. I Find My Greatest Bravery In Deciding To Be Brave.

That Lasting Things Do, In Fact, Last.

I Had Gotten So Used To Being Alone, But Never Entirely Used To It. Never Used To It Enough To Stop Wanting The Alternative.

I Am Proud That I Defy Your Categories. I Am Proud That I Don't Fit Easily Into Any Box. I Am Proud Of All The Things I Am And All The Things I Can Be. Question Yourself Every Time You Think You Only See One Thing In Me.

People Say That Time Slips Through Our Fingers Like Sand. What They Don't Acknowledge Is That Some Of The Sand Sticks To The Skin. These Are Memories That Will Remain, Memories Of The Time When There Was Still Time Left.

I Am Always Amazed By People Who Know Something Is Wrong But Still Insist On Ignoring It, As If That Will Somehow Make It Go Away. They Spare Themselves The Confrontation, But End Up Boiling In Resentment Anyway.

Willyoupleasebequiet: Are You Ready? Bluejeanbaby: For What? Willyoupleasebequiet: The Future Willyoupleasebequiet: Because I Think It Just Started

But I Think We Were Walking Around Like We Were Invincible. And Maybe That's A Bad Way To Live Your Life. Because You're Not Invincible. Nobody Is. And Maybe Now That We've Learned That, We'll Be Better.

I Want To Talk To You And Be Random With You And Be Ridiculous With You.

I Couldn't Remember Ordinary Moments, Only The Ones That Had Made An Impression. Ordinary Moments Were The Ones That Fell Away First.

Tiny: But There Is The Word, This Word Phil Wrayson Taught Me Once: Weltschmerz. It's The Depression You Feel When The World As It Is Does Not Line Up With The World As You Think It Should Be. I Live In A Big Goddamned Weltzschermz Ocean, You Know? And So Do You.

In Small Letters, Someone Has Written Never Forget On One Of The Slats. I Know It's Supposed To Be A Pledge, But It Feels Like A Curse. Don't We Have To Forget Some Of It? Don't We Have To Forget This Feeling? If We Don't, How Will We Live?

Freedom Is Also About What You Will Allow Yourself To Do.

You Are Happy Even If You Are Afraid To Admit It.

I Still Don’t Know If This Is A Good Quality Or A Bad One, To Be Able To Be In The Moment And Then Step Out Of It.

Self-esteem Can Be So Exhausting. I Want To Cut My Hair, Change My Clothes, Erase The Pimple From The Near-tip Of My Nose, And Strengthen My Upper-arm Definition, All In The Next Hour.

I Have Already Spent Roughly Five Thousand Hours Asleep Next To You. This Has To Mean Something.

Yearning N. And Adj. At Te Core Of This Desire Is The Belief That Everything Can Be Perfect.

It Was So Much Easier When I Didn't Want Anything. Not Getting What You Want Can Make You Cruel.

Getting What You Want

I Immediately Suspected There Was Much More To It Than Was Being Said.

My Pride Shut Me Up, My Hurt Shut Me Down, And Together They Ganged Up On My Hope And Let Her Get Away.

Do I Really Have To Find A Word For It? Can't It Just Be What It Is?

Let Me Hold On To This The Way It Was, Before I Knew Anything Else.

We Are So Used To Releasing Words. We Don't Know What To Do With Them If They Stay.

I Don't Get This At All. It's Like Protesting The Fact That Some People Are Red-haired.

We All Contain Mysteries, Especially When Seen From The Inside.

I Kiss Her And She Finds The Light Switch And Turns It Off, And We're Just Lit In Pepsi-can Colors And It's Like We've Finally Found This Other Kind Of Conversation, This Conversation In Gestures And Pulls And Pushes And Breaths And Grasps And Teases And Glimmers And Rubs And Expectation.

It's Not The Easy Things That Let You Get To Know A Person.

In My Experience, Desire Is Desire, Love Is Love. I Have Never Fallen In Love With A Gender. I Have Fallen For Individuals.

They Don’t Have Silences Together; They Have Noise. Mostly His.

I Was Starting To Think I Was Making Up Memories, Just To Have Answers. Our Brain Does That Sometimes. Or At Least Mine Does.

It's Goodbye To Some Things. And Hello To Others.

I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words. They Are Full Of Meaning, Yes, But They Lack Sensation. Writing To Her Is Not The Same As Seeing Her Face As She Listens. Hearing Back From Her Is Not The Same As Hearing Her Voice. I Have Always Been Grateful For Technology, But Now It Feels As If There's A Little Hitch Of Separation Woven Into Any Digital Interaction. I Want To Be There, And This Scares Me. All My Usual Disconnected Comforts Are Bieng Taken Away, Now That I See The Greater Comfort Of Presence.

"i Want You To Spend The Night," You Said. And It Was Definitely Your Phrasing That Ensured It. If You Had Said, "let's Have Sex," Or "let's Go To My Place," Or Even "i Really Want You," I'm Not Sure We Would Have Gone Quite As Far As We Did. But I Loved The Notion That The Night Was Mine To Spend, And I Immediately Decided To Spend It With You.

We Hold Hands As We Walk Through Town. If Anybody Notices, Nobody Cares. I Know We All Like To Think Of The Heart As The Center Of The Body But At This Moment, Every Conscious Part Of Me Is In The Hand That He Holds. It Is Through That Hand, That Feeling, That I Experience Everything Else.

You Know What’s A Great Metaphor For Love? Sleeping Beauty. Because You Have To Plow Through This Incredible Thicket Of Thorns In Order To Get To Beauty, And Even Then, When You Get There, You Still Have To Wake Her Up. — Tiny Cooper

He Never Wears A Watch (his Own Rebellion Against Time, Against Watching).

Love Is The Higher Law.

Breathing Is Hard. When You Cry So Much, It Makes You Realize That Breathing Is Hard.

This Is What A Memorial Is: Standing Still, Staring At Something That Isn’t Ther

It Is So Unfair That He Lives In Ohio, Because That Should Be Close Enough, But Since Neither Of Us Drives And Neither Of Us Would Ever In A Million Years Say, 'hey, Mom, Do You Want To Drive Me Across Indiana To See A Boy?,' We're Kind Of Stuck.

And Just Like That, The Universe Goes Wrong. Just Like That, All The Enormity Seems To Shrink Into A Ball And Float Away From My Reach. I Feel It, And She Doesn't. Or I Feel It, And She Won't.

I Know I Should Just Leave. Just Go. Because There's A Point Where A Mistake Turns Into A Big Mistake, And I Should Probably Come To My Senses Before I Get There.

There Is No Reason That We Should Ever Be Ashamed Of Our Bodies Or Ashamed Of Our Love.

This, I Think, Is How People Survive: Even When Horrible Things Have Been Done To Us, We Can Still Find Gratitude In One Another.

The Word I Think Of Is Precarious. I Am Struck By How Precarious It All Is. How The Things That Hold Us Are Only As Strong As The Faith We Have In Them.

Iv. Who Was It Who Invented Size Zero? Who Was It Who Promised That If You Got To A Certain Point You Would No Longer Be?

Dissonance, N. Nights When I Need To Sleep And You Can't. Days When I Want To Talk To You And You Won't. Hours When Every Noise You Make Interferes With My Silence. Weeks When There Is A Buzzing In The Air, And We Both Pretend We Don't Here It.

After Working For So Long On Being Sure Of Each Other, Sure Of This Thing, Suddenly We Were Unsure Again.

When We’re Alone Together, I’m The Destination. When I’m Here In Her Life At School, I’m The Disruption.

People Are Always Separable.

He Was My First Boyfriend, And I Made Him My Everything - He Was My New Life, My New Love, My New Compass Point. I Guess That's The Danger With Firsts - You Lose All Sense Of Proportion.

There Is Always Something New To Learn About The Person You Love.

It Feels Like I Am Wasting Time. I Mean, That's Always The Case. My Life Doesn't Add Up To Anything.

My Main Piece Of Advice Would Be Dont Worry About Being Published - Just Write A Really Good Book, But Also Dont Be Afraid To Write A Bad Book. Give Yourself Permission To Fail, And Dont Be Afraid.

There Is No Such Thing As Equality For Some. Equality Must Be For All. That Is What Freedom Is. That Is What Liberty Is. No Human Being Is Born More Or Less Important Than Any Other. How Can We Allow Ourselves To Forget That? What Simpler Truth Is There?

Sometimes Desire Is Air, Sometimes Desire Is Liquid. And Every Now And Then, When Everything Else Is Air And Liquid, Desire Solidifies, And The Body Is The Magnet That Draws Its Weight.

Gone Is Not Forgotten, But Our Lives Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Has To Be A City. Our Lives Have To Be Our Lives.

Once Time Is Lit, It Will Burn Whether Or Not You're Breathing It In. Even After Smoke Becomes Air, There Is The Memory Of Smoke. I Am Seeing As If By The Light Of A Match, A Glimpse Of My Life And Having It Feel Right.

I Think They Have Compatible Silences.

I Feel The Universe Is Telling Me Something. And It Doesn't Even Matter If It's True Or Not. What Matters Is That I Feel It, And Believe It.

Its Almost Scary How Amateur I Am When It Comes To Musicals - Im A Musical Goer, But I Am Not As Obsessed With Musicals As Perhaps Some Of My Theatrical Friends Are.

We Pencil-sketch Our Previous Life So We Can Contrast It To The Technicolor Of The Moment.

Magic Naturally Fades Over Distance. But Proximity - Well, When It Works, Proximity Amplifies Magic.

It's As If When You Love Someone, They Become Your Reason. And Maybe I've Gotten It Backward, Maybe It's Just Because I Need A Reason That I Find Myself Falling In Love With Her. But I Don't Think That's It. I Think I Would Have Continued Along, Oblivious, If I Hadn't Happened To Meet Her.

Falling In Love

When You Love Someone

Why Do We Even Bother? Why Do We Make Ourselves So Open To Such Easy Damage? Is It All Loneliness? Is It All Fear? Or Is It Just To Experience Those Narcotic Moments Of Belonging With Someone Else?

Here's What Breaks Us: Even Though We Know Better, We Still Want Everything To Be All Right.

There's No Way To Release Yourself From A Memory. It Ends When It Wants To End, Whether It's In A Flash Or Long After You've Begged It To Stop.

Sometimes Memory Tricks You. Sometimes Beauty Is Best When It's Distant.

I Want To Write My Life. I Want To Be Able To Write My Life. You Are A Second Away From Saying It. You Have No Idea How Much I Love You.

Told Her She Was Beautiful. Didn't Give Up When She Didn't Believe Me.

It Is An Awful Thing To Be Betrayed By Your Body. And It’s Lonely, Because You Feel You Can’t Talk About It.

I Think That If You Were Somehow Able To Measure The Weight Of Human Kindness, It Would Have Weighed More On 9/11 Than It Ever Had. On 9/11, All The Hatred And Murder Could Not Compare With The Weight Of Love, Of Bravery, Of Caring. I Have To Believe That.

I Close My Eyes. And I Scream. If My Whole World Is Crashing Down Around Me, Then I Am Going To Make The Sound Of The Crashing. I Want To Scream Until All My Bones Break.

But I Still Has Enough Longing For That Concept That I Didn't Want To Dispel It Completely. Meaning: I Didn't Want To Tell Lily That I Felt We'd All Been Duped By Plato And The Idea Of A Soul Mate. Just In Case It Turned Out That She Was Mine.

You See, Dash -- I Was Never The Girl In Your Head. And You Were Never The Boy In My Head. I Think We Both Knew That. It's Only When We Try To Make The Girl Or Boy In Our Head Real That The True Trouble Comes. I Did That With Carlos, And It Was A Bad Failure. Be Careful What You're Doing, Because No One Is Ever Who You Want Them To Be. And The Less You Really Know Them, The More Likely You Are To Confuse Them With The Girl Or Boy In Your Head.

Simon: That's Disgusting! Me: What's Disgusting? Simon: You Know. You Put Your Thing In The Place Where He, Um, Defecates.

Ted Is Smart And Good-looking, But He Doesn't Use It To Good Effect, Like A Rich Person That Never Gives To Charity.

Please May This Not Be A Game. Please May This Not Be A Game. Because If It’s A Game, I Know I’m Going To Lose.

The World Is Quieter Now. It Is Never Quiet, But It Can Get Quieter. What Strange Creatures We Are, To Find Silence Peaceful, When Permanent Silence Is The Thing We Most Dread. Nighttime Is Not That. Nighttime Still Rustles, Still Creaks And Whispers And Trembles In Its Throat. It Is Not Darkness We Fear, But Our Own Helplessness Within It. How Merciful To Have Been Granted The Other Senses.

I Learn About The Highs And Lows Of Living With The Same Mother For Your Entire Life, About How No One Can Make You Angrier, But How You Can't Really Love Anyone More.

We Could Call You An Ambisexual. A Duosexual. A—” “do I Really Have To Find A Word For It?” Kyle Interrupts. “can’t It Just Be What It Is?” “of Course,” I Say, Even Though In The Bigger World I’m Not So Sure. The World Loves Stupid Labels. I Wish We Got To Choose Our Own. We Pause For A Moment. I Wonder If That’s All—if He Just Needed To Say The Truth And Have It Heard. But Then Kyle Looks At Me With Unsure Eyes And Says, “you See, I Don’t Know Who I’m Supposed To Be.” “nobody Does,” I Assure Him.

I Don’t Like It When You Use My Shampoo, Because Then Your Hair Smells Like Me, Not You.

The Mistake Is Thinking That There Can Be An Antidote To The Uncertainty.

Dispel, V. It Was The Way You Said, “i Have Something To Tell You.” I Could Feel The Magic Drain From The Room.

When First Love Ends, Most People Eventually Know There Will Be More To Come. They Are Not Through With Love. Love Is Not Through With Them. It Will Never Be The Same As The First, But It Will Be Better In Different Ways.

You Can't Deny That There's Something Between Us." "no. There Is. When I Saw You Today--i Didn't Know I'd Been Waiting For You Until You Were There. And Then All Of That Waiting Rushed Through Me In A Second. That's Something... But I Don't Know If It's Certainty.

He Was Attractive. I Knew That. And I Knew That Attractive People Always Got Away With Things.

It’s Up To You, Not Fate. True. But It Was Also Up To Lily. That Was The Trickiest Part.

I Don’t Want To Throw Everything Away For Something Uncertain.

The Assumption Of The Word Reunion Is That, Once You're Together Again, You Are United. Two As One. Pulling Close To Someone Is Only A Temporary Symbol. It's The Way You Breathe With Each Other That's The Telltale Sign.

He Doesn’t Just Look Upset—he Looks Newly Blind. There Is Such Loss In His Eyes, And It Permeates Every Other Part Of His Body.

It's Hard To Answer A Question You Haven't Been Asked. It's Hard To Show You Tried Unless You End Up Succeeding.

Stanchion, N. I Don't Want To Be The Strong One, But I Don't Want To Be The Weak One Either. Why Does It Feel Like It's Always One Or The Other? When We Embrace, One Of Us Is Always Holding The Other A Little Tighter.

Hello, My Name Is Ees Lebkuchen Spice, And I Vant To Show You My Coooooookies.

I Only Have Eyes For You.

One Of My Best Friends Is Named David Leventhal, And It Has Always Been A Constant Source Of Amusement To See How The Similarity And Differences Play Out In Our Lives.

But The Thing About A Cry For Help Is That Someone Else Needs To Be Around To Hear It.

Gravity, N. I Imagine You Saved My Life. And Then I Wonder If I'm Just Imagining It.

..i've Been Trying To Argue Myself Into Thinking These Things Don't Matter, A. Really,i Have. But I've Lost The Argument. And I Can't Keep Having It, When I Know What The Real Answer Is.

That No Matter What I Did, I Would Always Be Missing Something Else. And The Only Way To Live, The Only Way To Be Happy, Was To Make Sure The Things I Didn't Miss Meant More To Me Than The Things I Missed.

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Herbert Kaufman

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