Poppies Bleed Petals Of Sheer Excess. You

How Could Anybody Confuse Truth With Beauty, I Thought As I Looked At Him. Truth Came With Sunken Eyes, Bony Or Scarred, Decayed. Its Teeth Were Bad, Its Hair Gray And Unkempt. While Beauty Was Empty As A Gourd, Vain As A Parakeet. But It Had Power. It Smelled Of Musk And Oranges And Made You Close Your Eyes In A Prayer.

I Tried Writing Fiction As A Little Kid, But Had A Teacher Humiliate Me, So Didn't Write Again Until I Was A Senior In College.

...the Men Eyed Her With The Automatic Mix Of Curiosity, Lust, And Aesthetic Judgment They Always Gave Young Women, Subject To Object, The Way You'd Stare At An Animal. She Pretended Not To Notice. To Remind Them She Was A Person Was Too Much Effort. Objects Bore No Guilt.

That Was The Thing About Words, They Were Clear And Specific-chair, Eye, Stone- But When You Talked About Feelings, Words Were Too Stiff, They Were This And Not That, They Couldn't Include All The Meanings. In Defining, They Always Left Something Out.

How Many People Ask You To Come Share Their Life?