But In The End It Wasn't Up

What If You Had Faith And Performed Good Works, What If You Died And Went To Heaven, And What If All The People You Met There Were People You Didn't Like?

Bubble Gum Angels Swooped From Top Margins Or Scraped Their Wings Between Teeming Paragraphs, Maidens With Golden Hair Dripped Sea Blue Tears Into The Books Spine, Grape-colored Whales Spouted Blood Around A Newspaper Item (pasted In) Listing Arrivals To The Endangered Spieces List. Six Hatchlings Cried From Shattered Shells Near An Entry Made On Easter. Cecilia Had Filled The Pages With A Profusion Of Colors And Curlicues, Candyland Ladders And Striped Shamrocks.

Depending On The Year Or The Therapist He Was Seeing, He'd Learned To Ascribe Just About Every Facet Of His Character As A Psychological Reaction To His Parents' Fighting: His Laziness, His Overachieving, His Tendency To Isolate, His Tendency To Seduce, His Hypochondria, His Sense Of Invulnerability, His Self-loathing, His Narcissism.

I Always Work In A Room Where There's No Internet To Keep From Being Distracted So Easily.

They Made Us Participate In Their Own Madness, Because We Couldn't Help But Retrace Their Steps, Rethink Their Thoughts, And See That None Of Them Led To Us.