She soon learned, though, that giving weight to other people’s opinions was creative nihilism; it was like being banished from the Land of No Words and exiled to the Land of All Bullshit.

But in dying so suddenly her mother had become a riddle at the gate instead of the road you walked to get there.

Sometimes a person can say I’m sorry a thousand times and that glue will never dry.

Less is less. Heartbreak is heartbreak. You think I’m sitting here gloating. Telling myself that my suffering beats yours? Hurt is hurt. You don’t measure these things.

If someone were to autopsy her heart, they’d find traces of life, evidence of eons gone by. Times when she’d been able to feel and the feelings left imprints. Maybe her heart was wearing a...

Her heart was finished. It bore, perhaps, records of life, but it wasn’t alive. Too late for decoration. Too late for effects. Further handling could only result in cracks and fractures. People could cut themselves...