Needs More Dance Breaks Quotes

I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.

In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver--love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.

She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it. "Here," she said, "in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver--love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet.More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize." Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened heir mouths and gave her the music.

am not always curious, of course. When I perceive someone being rude to me, I do not get it together to practice this dance of attunement every day. Not even most times. But more and more, I am curious enough to ask the magic question: “What do you need?” These four words open doors and break down walls. With the benefit of understanding, we are no longer two separate beings floating through these threads alone. We are giving and receiving. Two reciprocal atoms hugging each other through the turmoil around us. I hurt you. You hurt me. You’re mine.

Geez, Vi, you didn’t need to break your own leg to get out of going to the dance with Grady Spencer. A simple ‘no’ would have been just fine, I’m sure.” Apparently no one had noticed that Jay had barely let go of her hand for a second. His thumb was now tracing lazy circles around her palm, and he answered her uncle’s teasing comment without looking away from Violet for even a split second. “She’s not going to the dance with Grady,” he announced, smiling at her mischievously, and for a moment Violet forgot how to breathe. She hoped she never got used to how a simple look from him could turn her into a blithering idiot. “Really?” her aunt Kat asked, her eyes narrowing as she glanced from Violet to Jay, and then down at their intertwined hands. Clearly she wasn’t going to let the comment pass unnoticed. “Why is that?” she asked in a voice filled with unspoken meaning. Stephen Ambrose looked at his wife curiously, a little slow to catch on, which was sad, really, considering it was his job to seek out clues and solve mysteries. Jay answered Kat without missing a beat. “Because she’s going with me.” He winked at violet, whose cheeks had flushed to a brilliant shade of scarlet. She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for this. Violet saw her mom and Aunt Kat exchange meaningful glances. They knew, she realized. And now her uncle did too. Uncle Stephen gave Jay his best I’m-keeping-my-eye-on-you look, but a quick “Hmm” was the only sound he made. How much embarrassment could one person possible survive? There was a moment of awkward silence, made even more uncomfortable by Jay’s refusal to look anywhere but at her. He reached out and brushed his finger along her cheek. Violet almost forgot to care that everyone in the room was looking at them.

Violet,' Xaden groans against my mouth. The plea in his tone floods my veins with a whole different form of power. Knowing he's just as affected by our attraction as I am is a rush. 'This isn't what you want.' 'It's exactly what I want,' I counter. I want to replace the anger with lust, the death of the day with the pulse-pounding assurance of my own life, and I know he's capable of delivering all that and more. 'You said to do whatever I need.' I arch my back, pressing the tips of my breasts against his chest. His breathing changes, and there's a war in his eyes that I'm determined to win. It's time to stop dancing around this unbearable tension and break it. He leans down, his mouth only inches from mine. 'And I'm telling you that I'm the last thing you need.' The barely leashed growl of his voice rumbles up through his chest, and every nerve ending in my body flares to life. 'Are you suggesting someone else?' My heart races as I chance calling his bluff. 'Fuck no.' The unmistakable flare of jealousy narrows his eyes for a heartbeat before his hips pin mine to the door, and my instant relief at his answer is replaced by a jolt of pure lust. I can see that infamous control of his hovering on the edge, balancing precariously on the point of a knife. All he needs is one. Little. Push. And I'm about to shamelessly shove. 'Good.' I tilt my head up to his and draw his bottom lip between mine, sucking before gently nipping him with my teeth. 'Because I only want you, Xaden.' The words breach something within him, and he gives. Finally. One mouths collide, and the kiss is hot and hard and completely out of our control.

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide. (Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?) Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other. In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own. I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel. Is there a tunnel?" he said.

When she dies, you are not at first surprised. Part of love is preparing for death. You feel confirmed in your love when she dies. You got it right. This is part of it all. Afterward comes the madness. And then the loneliness: not the spectacular solitude you had anticipated, not the interesting martyrdom of widowhood, but just loneliness. You expect something almost geological-- vertigo in a shelving canyon -- but it's not like that; it's just misery as regular as a job. What do we doctors say? I'm deeply sorry, Mrs Blank; there will of course be a period of mourning but rest assured you will come out of it; two of these each evening, I would suggest; perhaps a new interst, Mrs Blank; can maintenance, formation dancing?; don't worry, six months will see you back on the roundabout; come and see me again any time; oh nurse, when she calls, just give her this repeat will you, no I don't need to see her, well it's not her that's dead is it, look on the bright side. What did she say her name was? And then it happens to you. There's no glory in it. Mourning is full of time; nothing but time.... you should eat stuffed sow's heart. I might yet have to fall back on this remedy. I've tried drink, but what does that do? Drink makes you drunk, that's all it's ever been able to do. Work, they say, cures everything. It doesn't; often, it doesn't even induce tiredness: the nearest you get to it is a neurotic lethargy. And there is always time. Have some more time. Take your time. Extra time. Time on your hands. Other people think you want to talk. 'Do you want to talk about Ellen?' they ask, hinting that they won't be embarrassed if you break down. Sometimes you talk, sometimes you don't; it makes little difference. The word aren't the right ones; or rather, the right words don't exist. 'Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.' You talk, and you find the language of bereavement foolishly inadequate. You seem to be talking about other people's griefs. I loved her; we were happy; I miss her. She didn't love me; we were unhappy; I miss her. There is a limited choice of prayers on offer: gabble the syllables. And you do come out of it, that's true. After a year, after five. But your don't come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the Downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.

But before I got in the ring, I’d won it out here on the road. Some people think a Heavyweight Championship fight is decided during the fifteen rounds the two fighters face each other under hot blazing lights, in front of thousands of screaming witnesses, and part of it is. But a prizefight is like a war: the real part is won or lost somewhere far away from witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym and out here on the road long before I dance under those lights. I’ve got another mile to go. My heart is about to break through my chest, sweat is pouring off me. I want to stop but I’ve marked this as the day to test myself, to find out what kind of shape I’m in, how much work I have to do. Whenever I feel I want to stop, I look around and I see George Foreman running, coming up next to me. And I run a little harder. I’ve got a half-mile more to go and each yard is draining me, I’m running on my reserve tank now, but I know each step I take after I’m exhausted builds up special stamina and it’s worth all the other running put together. I need something to push me on, to keep me from stopping, until I get to the farmer’s stable up ahead, five miles from where I started. George is helping me. I fix my mind on him and I see him right on my heels. I push harder, he’s catching up. It’s hard for me to get my breath, I feel like I’m going to faint. He’s starting to pull ahead of me. This is the spark I need. I keep pushing harder till I pull even with him. His sweat shirt’s soaking wet and I hear him breathing fast and hard. My heart is pounding like it’s going to explode, but I drive myself on. I glance over at him and he’s throwing himself in the wind, going all out. My legs are heavy and tight with pain but I manage to drive, drive, drive till I pass him, Till he slowly fades away. I’ve won, but I’m not in shape. I’ve still got a long way to go. I’m gasping for breath. My throat’s dry and I feel like I’m going to throw up. I want to fall on my face but I must stay up, keep walking, keep standing. I’m not there yet but I know I’m winning. I’m winning the fight on the road . . .

After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, 'Let the children come!' and they ran from the trees toward her. 'Let your mothers hear you laugh,' she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then 'Let the grown men come,' she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. 'Let your wives and your children see you dance,' she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet. Finally she called the women to her. 'Cry,' she told them. 'For the living and the dead. Just cry.' And without covering their eyes the women let loose. It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart. She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it. 'Here,' she said, 'in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. These they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And nom they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.

He ruffled her hair as he came in, all uncle and no cop about him now. She far preferred her uncle to the chief; he had inherited the sense of humor in the family, while her father got the receding hairline and mad skills with numbers. "Geez, Vi, you didn't need to break your own leg to get out of going to the dance with Grady Spencer. A simple 'no' would have been just fine, I'm sure." Apparently no one had noticed that Jay had barely let go of her hand for a second. His thumb was now tracing lazy circles around her palm, and he answered her uncle's teasing comment without looking away from Violet for even a split second. "She's not going to the dance with Grady," he announced, smiling at her mischievously, and for a moment Violet forgot how to breathe. She hoped she never got used to how a simple look from him could turn her into a blithering idiot. "Really?" her aunt Kat asked, her eyes narrowing as she glanced from Violet to Jay, and then down at their intertwined hands. Clearly she wasn't going to let the comment pass unnoticed. "Why is that?" she asked in a voice filled with unspoken meaning. Stephen Ambrose looked at his wife curiously, a little slow to catch on, which was sad, really, considering it was his job to seek out clues and solve mysteries. Jay answered Kat without missing a beat. "Because she's going with me." He winked at Violet, whose cheeks had flushed to a brilliant shade of scarlet. She wasn't entirely sure she was ready for this. Violet saw her mom and Aunt Kat exchange meaningful glances. They knew, she realized. And now her uncle did too. Uncle Stephen gave Jay his best I'm-keeping-my-eye-on-you look, but a quick "Hmm" was the only sound he made. How much embarrassment could one person possibly survive? There was a moment of awkward silence, made even more uncomfortable by Jay's refusal to look anywhere but at her. He reached out and brushed his finger along her cheek. Violet almost forgot to care that everyone in the room was looking at them. Her uncle Stephen cleared his throat, and Violet jumped a little.

I peeked into the Great Hall,” Florine said so quietly Aelin could barely hear her. “To see how the general is faring. He is gaunt and pale, but alert. Ready—for you.” Aelin went still. “I always wondered where Arobynn found you,” Florine murmured, staring at the door as if she could see through it. “Why he took such pains to break you to his will, more so than all the others.” The woman closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, steel gleamed there. “When you shatter the chains of this world and forge the next, remember that art is as vital as food to a kingdom. Without it, a kingdom is nothing, and will be forgotten by time. I have amassed enough money in my miserable life to not need any more—so you will understand me clearly when I say that wherever you set your throne, no matter how long it takes, I will come to you, and I will bring music and dancing.

When warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every black man, woman, and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the Clearing--a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of the path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land in the first place. In the heat of every Saturday afternoon, she sat in the clearing while the people waited among the trees. After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, "Let the children come!" and they ran from the trees toward her. "Let your mothers hear you laugh,"she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then "Let the grown men come," she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. "Let your wives and your children see you dance," she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet. Finally she called the women to her. “Cry,” she told them. “For the living and the dead. Just cry.” And without covering their eyes the women let loose. It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart…“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it… No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them! Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it - you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed…What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give leavins instead. No they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it." "This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And oh my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it, and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver - love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet…More than your life-holding womb and your live-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize."" -Baby Suggs

How do you build peaks? You create a positive moment with elements of elevation, insight, pride, and/ or connection. We’ll explore those final three elements later, but for now, let’s focus on elevation. To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script. (Breaking the script means to violate expectations about an experience—the next chapter is devoted to the concept.) Moments of elevation need not have all three elements but most have at least two. Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality. Things look better or taste better or sound better or feel better than they usually do. Weddings have flowers and food and music and dancing. (And they need not be superexpensive—see the footnote for more.IV) The Popsicle Hotline offers sweet treats delivered on silver trays by white-gloved waiters. The Trial of Human Nature is conducted in a real courtroom. It’s amazing how many times people actually wear different clothes to peak events: graduation robes and wedding dresses and home-team colors. At Hillsdale High, the lawyers wore suits and the witnesses came in costume. A peak means something special is happening; it should look different. To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment. Consider the pregame jitters at a basketball game, or the sweaty-hands thrill of taking the stage at Signing Day, or the pressure of the oral defense at Hillsdale High’s Senior Exhibition. Remember how the teacher Susan Bedford said that, in designing the Trial, she and Greg Jouriles were deliberately trying to “up the ante” for their students. They made their students conduct the Trial in front of a jury that included the principal and varsity quarterback. That’s pressure. One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion. (Not counting the selfie addict, who thinks his face is a special occasion.) Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation.

As Merripen gave the ribbons to a stableman at the mews, Amelia glanced toward the end of the alley. A pair of street youths crouched near a tiny fire, roasting something on sticks. Amelia did not want to speculate on the nature of the objects being heated. Her attention moved to a group—three men and a woman—illuminated in the uncertain blaze. It appeared two of the men were engaged in fisticuffs. However, they were so inebriated that their contest looked like a performance of dancing bears. The woman’s gown was made of gaudily colored fabric, the bodice gaping to reveal the plump hills of her breasts. She seemed amused by the spectacle of two men battling over her, while a third attempted to break up the fracas. “’Ere now, my fine jacks,” the woman called out in a Cockney accent, “I said I’d take ye both on—no need for a cockfight!” “Stay back,” Merripen murmured. Pretending not to hear, Amelia drew closer for a better view. It wasn’t the sight of the brawl that was so interesting—even their village, peaceful little Primrose Place, had its share of fistfights. All men, no matter what their situation, occasionally succumbed to their lower natures. What attracted Amelia’s notice was the third man, the would-be peacemaker, as he darted between the drunken fools and attempted to reason with them. He was every bit as well dressed as the gentlemen on either side … but it was obvious this man was no gentleman. He was black-haired and swarthy and exotic. And he moved with the swift grace of a cat, easily avoiding the swipes and lunges of his opponents. “My lords,” he was saying in a reasonable tone, sounding relaxed even as he blocked a heavy fist with his forearm. “I’m afraid you’ll both have to stop this now, or I’ll be forced to—” He broke off and dodged to the side just as the man behind him leaped. The prostitute cackled at the sight. “They got you on the ’op tonight, Rohan,” she exclaimed. Dodging back into the fray, Rohan attempted to break it up once more. “My lords, surely you must know”—he ducked beneath the swift arc of a fist—“that violence”—he blocked a right hook—“never solves anything.” “Bugger you!” one of the men said, and butted forward like a deranged goat. Rohan stepped aside and allowed him to charge straight into the side of the building. The attacker collapsed with a groan and lay gasping on the ground. His opponent’s reaction was singularly ungrateful. Instead of thanking the dark-haired man for putting a stop to the fight, he growled, “Curse you for interfering, Rohan! I would’ve knocked the stuffing from him!” He charged forth with his fists churning like windmill blades. Rohan evaded a left cross and deftly flipped him to the ground. He stood over the prone figure, blotting his forehead with his sleeve. “Had enough?” he asked pleasantly. “Yes? Good. Please allow me to help you to your feet, my lord.

Fuel your body. Think about your environment as an ecosystem. If there’s pollution, you’ll feel the toxic side effects; if you’re in the fresh air of the mountains, you’ll feel alive. You’d be surprised at how many of the foods that we eat actually sap our body of fuel. Just look at three quick examples: soda, potato chips, and hamburgers. I’m not a hard-liner who says that you should never consume these things, but this kind of steady diet will make it harder for your body to help you. Instead, look at the foods that are going to give you energy. Choose food that’s water soluble and easier for your body to break down, which gives you maximum nutrition with minimal effort. Look at a cucumber: it’s practically water and it takes no energy to consume, but it’s packed with nutrients. Green for me is the key. We overeat and undernourish ourselves way too much. When you eat bad food, your body will feel bad and then you will feel bad. It’s all connected. I drink green juice every day and eat huge salads. I am also a big believer in lean protein to feed and fuel the muscles--I might even have a chicken breast for breakfast. Growing up, because I danced every single day, I would basically eat anything I wanted and I wouldn’t gain any weight. I would eat anything and everything trying to put on a few pounds, but it never worked--and my skin was terrible as a result of it. We’d blame it on the sweat from the dancing, but I never connected it to what I ate. As I got older, I started to educate myself more about food. I learned that I need to alkalize my body. It’s never about how I look. Instead, I go by how I feel. I notice immediately how good, clean food boosts my energy while junk makes me feel lethargic. I’m also a huge believer in hydrating. Forget about eight glasses of water a day; I drink eight glasses before noon!

Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.” Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.

More than putting another man on the moon, more than a New Year’s resolution of yogurt and yoga, we need the opportunity to dance with really exquisite strangers. A slow dance between the couch and dinning room table, at the end of the party, while the person we love has gone to bring the car around because it’s begun to rain and would break their heart if any part of us got wet. A slow dance to bring the evening home, to knock it out of the park. Two people rocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant. A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey. It’s a little like cheating. Your head resting on his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck. Your hands along her spine. Her hips unfolding like a cotton napkin and you begin to think about how all the stars in the sky are dead. The my body is talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody, Stairway to Heaven, power-cord slow dance. All my life I’ve made mistakes. Small and cruel. I made my plans. I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine. The slow dance doesn’t care. It’s all kindness like children before they turn four. Like being held in the arms of my brother. The slow dance of siblings. Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him, one of my great loves, he is absolutely human, and when he turns to dip me or I step on his foot because we are both leading, I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer. The slow dance of what’s to come and the slow dance of insomnia pouring across the floor like bath water. When the woman I’m sleeping with stands naked in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit into the sink. There is no one to save us because there is no need to be saved. I’ve hurt you. I’ve loved you. I’ve mowed the front yard. When the stranger wearing a shear white dress covered in a million beads comes toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life, I take her hand in mine. I spin her out and bring her in. This is the almond grove in the dark slow dance. It is what we should be doing right now. Scrapping for joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutan slow dance.

Beginning in 2011, SpaceX won a series of contracts from NASA to develop rockets that could take humans to the International Space Station, a task made crucial by the retirement of the Space Shuttle. To fulfill that mission, it needed to add to its facilities at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 40, and Musk set his sights on leasing the most storied launch facility there, Pad 39A. Pad 39A had been center stage for America’s Space Age dreams, burned into the memories of a television generation that held its collective breath when the countdowns got to “Ten, nine, eight…” Neil Armstrong’s mission to the moon that Bezos watched as a kid blasted off from Pad 39A in 1969, as did the last manned moon mission, in 1972. So did the first Space Shuttle mission, in 1981, and the last, in 2011. But by 2013, with the Shuttle program grounded and America’s half-century of space aspirations ending with bangs and whimpers, Pad 39A was rusting away and vines were sprouting through its flame trench. NASA was eager to lease it. The obvious customer was Musk, whose Falcon 9 rockets had already launched on cargo missions from the nearby Pad 40, where Obama had visited. But when the lease was put out for bids, Jeff Bezos—for both sentimental and practical reasons—decided to compete for it. When NASA ended up awarding the lease to SpaceX, Bezos sued. Musk was furious, declaring that it was ridiculous for Blue Origin to contest the lease “when they haven’t even gotten so much as a toothpick to orbit.” He ridiculed Bezos’s rockets, pointing out that they were capable only of popping up to the edge of space and then falling back; they lacked the far greater thrust necessary to break the Earth’s gravity and go into orbit. “If they do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle qualified to NASA’s human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs,” Musk said. “Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct.” The battle of the sci-fi barons had blasted off. One SpaceX employee bought dozens of inflatable toy unicorns and photographed them in the pad’s flame duct. Bezos was eventually able to lease a nearby launch complex at Cape Canaveral, Pad 36, which had been the origin of missions to Mars and Venus. So the competition of the boyish billionaires was set to continue. The transfer of these hallowed pads represented, both symbolically and in practice, John F. Kennedy’s torch of space exploration being passed from government to the private sector—from a once-glorious but now sclerotic NASA to a new breed of mission-driven pioneers.

His shining skin drew my attention and I became enslaved to the need to explore every inch of his flesh. His body brought on an ache in me I hadn't known for a long time. Since my ex had dumped me after I'd given him my virginity, I hadn't done more than fool around with guys. The desire to go further had never really risen again. Not until Orion. And I had never, in all my life, wanted anyone like I wanted him. His beard had been trimmed even shorter for the party, revealing the powerful cut of his jaw and that divine dimple in his cheek. He'd brought me here, alone, cordoning me off from the world. And the blazing intensity in his gaze made me hope that maybe he was about to drop the teacher act for one night and admit he was drawn to me too. He glanced above us and his brow furrowed heavily. “Up there are a thousand reasons why we can't be together.” I swallowed thickly, goosebumps rushing along my skin in response to his words. I pressed my back to the cool tiles of the pool and the goosebumps spread deeper, evoking a shiver across my body. “I'm bound by so many rules I could waste the rest of your evening telling you them,” he said. “Skip them then, sir.” A smile played around my mouth as a thrill danced in my chest. He moved closer and rested his hands either side of me on the wall. “I think the time for sirs and professors is over, don't you?” No answer came from my lips, but my body gave it to him as I reached out and did the one thing I'd dreamed about the most since this all-consuming crush had first started. I brushed my fingers across the stubble on his jaw, resting my thumb over the dimple in his cheek, feeling the tiny rivet in his skin. The distance parting us suddenly felt like too much; the air was racing over my exposed flesh, chilling me to the core. I needed the heat of his hands, the red hot press of his stomach and chest. “Lance,” I breathed and his pupils dilated as I met his gaze. He devoured the space between us and I experienced pure sin as his mouth crushed against mine. It was gunpowder meeting fire and the result was an all-consuming blaze which burned me up from the inside out. A desperate noise escaped me that would have made me blush if I’d had any scrap of self-awareness left. But that was all it took for him to slam into me full force, hitching my legs up around his waist so fast it made my head spin. My hands finally got their deepest wish and roamed down the plains of all that gloriously golden skin. But it wasn't enough just to feel the flex of his muscles, I needed more and I took it by scratching against his beautiful shell, wanting to break beneath flesh and bone and burrow my way deeper. I need more. (Darcy)

In my youth . . . my sacred youth . . . in eaves sole sparowe sat not more alone than I . . . in my youth, my saucer-deep youth, when I possessed a mirror and both a morning and an evening comb . . . in my youth, my pimpled, shame-faced, sugared youth, when I dreamed myself a fornicator and a poet; when life seemed to be ahead somewhere like a land o’ lakes vacation cottage, and I was pure tumescence, all seed, afloat like fuzz among the butterflies and bees; when I was the bursting pod of a fall weed; when I was the hum of sperm in the autumn air, the blue of it like watered silk, vellum to which I came in a soft cloud; O minstrel galleons of Carib fire, I sang then, knowing naught, clinging to the tall slim wheatweed which lay in a purple haze along the highway like a cotton star . . . in my fumbling, lubricious, my uticated youth, when a full bosom and a fine round line of Keats, Hart Crane, or Yeats produced in me the same effect—a moan throughout my molecules—in my limeade time, my uncorked innocence, my jellybelly days, when I repeated Olio de Oliva like a tenor; then I would touch the page in wonder as though it were a woman, as though I were blind in my bed, in the black backseat, behind the dark barn, the dim weekend tent, last dance, date's door, reaching the knee by the second feature, possibly the thigh, my finger an urgent emissary from my penis, alas as far away as Peking or Bangkok, so I took my heart in my hand, O my love, O my love, I sighed, O Christina, Italian rose; my inflated flesh yearning to press against that flesh becoming Word—a word—words which were wet and warm and responsive as a roaming tongue; and her hair was red, long, in ringlets, kiss me, love me up, she said in my anxious oral ear; I read: Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; for I had oodles of needs, if England didn't; I was nothing but skin, pulp, and pit, in my grapevine time, during the hard-on priesthood of the poet; because then—in my unclean, foreskinned, and prurient youth—I devoutly believed in Later Life, in Passion, in Poetry, the way I thought only fools felt about God, prayer, heaven, foreknowledge, sin; for what was a poem if not a divine petition, a holy plea, a prophecy: [...] a stranger among strangers, myself the strangest because I could never bring myself to enter adolescence, but kept it about like a bit of lunch you think you may eat later, and later come upon at the bottom of a bag, dry as dust, at the back of the refrigerator, bearded with mold, or caked like sperm in the sock you've fucked, so that gingerly, then, you throw the mess out, averting your eyes, just as Rainer complained he never had a childhood—what luck!—never to have suffered birthpang, nightfear, cradlecap, lake in your lung; never to have practiced scales or sat numb before the dentist's hum or picked your mother up from the floor she's bled and wept and puked on; never to have been invaded by a tick, sucked by a leech, bitten by a spider, stung by a bee, slimed on by a slug, seared by a hot pan, or by paper or acquaintance cut, by father cuffed; never to have been lost in a crowd or store or parking lot or left by a lover without a word or arrogantly lied to or outrageously betrayed—really what luck!—never to have had a nickel roll with slow deliberation down a grate, a balloon burst, toy break; never to have skinned a knee, bruised a friendship, broken trust; never to have had to conjugate, keep quiet, tidy, bathe; to have lost the chance to be hollered at, bullied, beat up (being nothing, indeed, to have no death), and not to have had an earache, life's lessons to learn, or sums to add reluctantly right up to their bitter miscalculated end—what sublime good fortune, the Greek poet suggested—because Nature is not accustomed to life yet; it is too new, too incidental, this shiver in the stone, never altogether, and would just as soon (as Culp prefers to say) cancer it; erase, strike, stamp it out— [...]

I took a step away, pulling my sheets over her and intending to take a position in the armchair by the fire for the night but she caught my hand before I could leave. I looked at her in surprise and found her eyes open, her gaze locked on mine. “Don’t go,” she breathed, her grip tightening. “I don’t think you really-” “Please don’t leave me alone,” she begged and the vulnerability in her voice broke down any further protests I’d been going to make. She sat up a little and tugged on my arm, trying to pull me down into the bed with her. And I couldn’t really deny the fact that I’d thought about getting her in my bed more than once before. Not that I’d lay a finger on her in her current state but even seeing her here, surrounded by gold and half undressed was sending zips of turbulent energy right through me. She pulled on my hand again and I gave up trying to talk myself out of it as I kicked my shoes off and got in beside her. She smiled at me and it wasn’t sarcastic or taunting, the difference that made taking my breath away for a moment. I settled back against the pillows and she rolled against me, pressing her nearly naked body flush to mine. I could feel myself getting hard just from that small amount of contact. I tried to prise her away from me but she wriggled closer, pressing her full breasts against me and giving me a clear view of them trying to break free of the confines of her bra. “Fuck, Roxy, I cant sleep next to you while you’re dressed like that,” I said, rolling her away from me more forcefully. She blinked up at me in confusion for a moment before pushing herself upright and looking down at her undressed state. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled before pulling off the unbuttoned shirt and throwing it to the floor. “Better?” My mouth dried up and a growl escaped me as the Dragon writhed beneath my skin. “You need to be putting more on, not taking things off,” I said tersely. She huffed like I was the one who was being ridiculous. “Give me your shirt then,” she demanded, reaching out to pull at my black t-shirt. “I don’t think it will help if I start taking off my clothes too,” I said, catching her wrist to stop her. “You’re so fucking bossy,” she muttered, a bit of her usual fire rising to the surface. “Just do as you’re told for once.” Before I could respond to that, she shoved my hand aside and moved to straddle me in one quick movement. I was so surprised that for a moment I couldn’t even react as she yanked on my shirt and pulled it over my head. My hands found her waist, my thumbs brushing against her hip bones as she looked down at me with her dark hair tumbling around her shoulders and that sexy as sin underwear begging me to touch it. She laughed as she waved the shirt at me triumphantly, doing a little victory dance which meant she was grinding right against my hard-on and sending my body haywire. Before I could say or do anything, she pulled the shirt over her head and covered herself with it. I was so much bigger than her that it fell right down to pool around her thighs, trapping my hands beneath the material where I still held her. Her gaze locked with mine and for a moment it was like none of the shit that had passed between us had ever happened and we were just us, alone...in my bed. (DariusPOV)

She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it. “Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.” Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.

The separation phase of leaving my previous environment broke my heart; but that breaking is necessary for an individual to be able connect with what allows them to begin to rebuild. Confusion and avoidance can be a dance, more circular than linear, and the process takes the time it needs. Having patience for oneself during the process is crucial, considering that all notions of personhood, purpose, “relationship to others, explanations about the world, interpretations of the past, expectations for the future, and directions about how to feel, think, make decisions, and lead your life have been lost” (Winell 17). The confusion phase often sets in very quickly because the previously provided foundation of certainty to stand upon is suddenly gone, and avoidance often enters not long after because the overwhelming reality of everything that has been lost or has changed can be too much to handle.

This isn't what you want." "It's exactly what I want," I counter. I want to replace the anger with lust, the death of the day with the pulse-pounding assurance of my own life, and I know he's capable of delivering all that and more. "You said to do whatever I need." I arch my back, pressing the tips of my breasts against his chest. His breathing changes, and there's a war in his eyes that I'm determined to win. It's time to stop dancing around this unbearable tension and break it. He leans down, his mouth only inches from mine. "And I'm telling you that I'm the last thing you need." The barely leashed growl of his voice rumbles up through his chest, and every nerve ending in my body flares to life.

Sometimes the best way to relax, unwind, and get everything straightened out... is to curl up with a good book. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Give something of yourself to the day... even if it’s just a smile to someone walking the other way. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Even if you can’t just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day, and you can keep shortening the distance between the two of you. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Rest assured that, whenever you need them, your guardian angels are great about working overtime. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You Never forget what a treasure you are. That special person in the mirror may not always get to hear all the compliments you so sweetly deserve, but you are so worthy of such an abundance... of friendship, joy, and love. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady I love that I get to wake up every morning in a world that has people like you in it. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady Be someone who doesn’t make your guardian angel work too hard or worry too much. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Each day is a blank page in the diary of your life. Every day, you’re given a chance to determine what the words will say and how the story will unfold. The more rewarding you can make each page, the more amazing the entire book will be. And I would love for you to write a masterpiece. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Practice your tree pose. I want you to have a goal of finding a way to bring everything in your life into balance. Let the roots of all your dreams go deep. Let the hopes of all your tomorrows grow high. Bend, but don’t break. Take the seasons as they come. Stick up for yourself. And reach for the sky. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Remember that a new morning is good medicine... and one of the joys of life is realizing that you have the ability to make this a really great day. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Find comfort in knowing that “rising above” is something you can always find a way to do. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Look up “onward” in the thesaurus and utilize every one of those synonyms whenever you’re wondering which direction to go in. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Don’t judge yourself – love yourself. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! If you have a choice between a la-di-da life and an ooh-la-la! one, well... you know what to do. Choose the one that requires you to dust off your dancing shoes. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Write out your own definition of success. Fill it with a mix of stardust and wishes and down-to-earth things, and provide all the insight you can give it. Imagine what it takes to have a really happy, rewarding life. And then go out... and live it. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life!

In the ‘Broken Windows’ theory, if a single broken window on an empty building is ignored, and not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may break into the building, and light fires, or become squatters. When Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York in 1993, his belief in the ‘Broken Windows’ theory led him to implement the ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy. Crime dropped dramatically, significantly, and continued to for the next ten years. Personally, I feel the time has come for women to introduce their own Zero Tolerance policy on the Broken Window issues in our lives – I want a Zero Tolerance policy on ‘All The Patriarchal Bullshit’. And the great thing about a Zero Tolerance policy on Patriarchal Broken Windows Bullshit is this: in the 21st century, we don’t need to march against size zero models, risible pornography, lap-dancing clubs and Botox. We don’t need to riot, or go on hunger strike. There’s no need to throw ourselves under a horse, or even a donkey. We just need to look it in the eye, squarely, for a minute, and then start laughing at it. We look hot when we laugh. People fancy us when they observe us giving out relaxed, earthy chuckles. ~

Red Sister "We’re Giljohn’s children. The thought rolled across the smoothness of her mind as the Ancestor’s song grew louder. Sisters of the cage." Hessa had not feared dying. But Nona feared living without her. “The truth is a weapon and lies are a necessary shield.” "All the world and more has rushed eternity’s length to reach this beat of your heart, screaming down the years. And if you let it, the universe, without drawing breath, will press itself through this fractured second and race to the next, on into a new eternity. Everything that is, the echoes of everything that ever was, the roots of all that will ever be, must pass through this moment that you own. Your only task is to give it pause—to make it notice." "His older two were long grown, and little Sali would always be five." "It’s harder to forgive someone else your own sins than those uniquely theirs." “Those that burn short burn bright. The shortest lives can cast the longest shadows.” "The new picture didn’t erase the old—the bump was still a hole, but now it was a bump as well; the old lady was still a young one, but now she was old too. Clera was still her friend, and now an enemy also." “People always want to know things . . . until they hear them, and then it’s too late. Knowledge is a rug of a certain size, and the world is larger. It’s not what remains uncovered at the edges that should worry you, rather what is swept beneath.” Kettle sat with her head back against the bark, her face white as death, a tear running from the corner of her eye. “I can always reach her. A thousand miles wouldn’t matter.” She raised an arm, unsteady, and beneath it a shadow blacker than the night stretched out, reaching for infinity, as if the sun had fallen behind her. “It’s done. She knows I need her. She knows the direction.” “You swear it?” “I swear it.” “By the Ancestor?” “By the Ancestor.” The faintest echo of that grin. “And by the Hope, and the Missing Gods who echo in the tunnels, and by the gods too small for names who dance in buttercups and fall with the rain. Now go. For the love of all that’s holy, go. You wear me out, Nona. And I’ve got to concentrate on being alive. It would break her heart to get here and find me dead.” She drew a shallow breath. “They’re both in that direction. If you take it until you find some sort of trail there’s a good chance you’ll find Ara and the others on it. Try to travel with Ara and Zole. Tarkax may be able to protect you if the Noi-Guin track you from here.” Another shallow breath, snatched in over her pain. “Go! Now!” Nona came forward. She set her canteen in Kettle’s lap and kissed her icy forehead. Then she ran.

Don’t know if you have any hobbies.” She nodded. “I do. I may have to take a break from it for a bit while I’m out here, but normally when I have a light day on campus, I go to a class . . .” I waited. “It’s . . . pole dancing.” I stopped breathing, but at least I didn’t choke. Nodding, I took a sip of my wine to block my face, which I was pretty sure had turned the shade of a beet. “So, like Flashdance? Welder by day, dancer by night?” I barked out, feeling a stirring in my pants that was wholly inappropriate for my roomie, who’d been talking about diode lasers a minute earlier. She’s a goddamn pole dancer. She chuckled and crossed her arms over her chest as though trying to keep me from picturing her dancing. “Excellent movie reference. But no, that’s not even close to what I do.” It hardly mattered. My brain was stuck. Like a white-hot strobe had blinded me to everything except Sarah wearing lingerie and grinding on a pole under hot lights. For me. Stop picturing it. Fuck! “Cool,” I finally managed to say with a straight face. Like it meant nothing. She nodded. Like it meant nothing. Then she spread some brie cheese on a cracker and took a bite. I choked out an excuse and went to the bathroom to get a grip. This will be okay. It will. It has to be. In the bathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face and took a hard look at myself in the mirror. What was happening? I hadn’t been this jacked up over a woman anytime in the past two years. My emotions had been buried in caverns so deep I felt confident they were gone for good. I was fine with that. It made no sense. Or . . . maybe it did. I’ve always been competitive as fuck. If I’m told I can’t have something, I want it all the more and do anything in my power to make it mine. That had to be what was happening here. It was all in my head. I knew she was off limits, so the competitive motherfucker in me started bucking against that. I just needed to get my head together and think of her like any other human who happened to be using my second bedroom. When I got back to the table, Sarah looked up at me with a thin slice of Parma ham twirled around her fork and put the bit into her mouth. I had no defensible reason to focus on her lips or the soft contour of her jaw while she chewed. She swallowed and smiled at me. “I figured I should get a head start on eating while you were gone. In case you had more questions.” “Good plan. Maybe we should focus on the food for a few minutes, or we could be here all night.” I bit into a slider and closed my eyes at how delicious the slow-roasted meat tasted on the brioche bun. Who needed to cook when someone else could make food that tasted like this? It was how I’d become addicted to takeout and why I rarely ate at home anymore. That, and I spent a lot of time at work. Sarah finished the last of the cheesy bread and wiped her lips gingerly on a napkin before looking right at me with those gorgeous eyes. “This is weird, right? It’s not just me?” I tilted my head, trying to read her expression and decipher her meaning. “Could you be specific? She waved her hands between us. “This. Us. We’re in our thirties and we’re roommates. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a roommate for about ten years. Does it freak you out a little bit?” Yes, but not for the reasons she meant.

She was quiet for a long time before she answered me. “Josh, if you knew that being with me would take away the one thing I’ve always wanted, would you do it?” I understood her reasoning. I did. But it didn’t make it easier. “What if it were me who couldn’t have kids?” I asked. “Would you leave me?” She sighed. “Josh, it’s different.” “How? How is it different?” “Because you’re worth it. You’re worth any flaw you might have. I’m not.” I moved her away from me so I could look her in the eye. “You don’t think you’re worth it? Are you kidding me?” Her exhausted eyes just stared back at me, empty. “I’m not worth it. I’m a mess. I’m irritable and impatient. I’m bossy and demanding. And I have all these health issues. I can’t give you babies. I’m not worth it, Josh. I’m not. Another woman would be so much easier.” “I don’t want an easy woman. I want you.” I shook my head. “Don’t you get it? You are perfect to me. I feel like a better man just knowing that I can do anything for you—make you lunch, make you laugh, take you dancing. These things feel like a privilege to me. All those things that you think are flaws are what I love about you. Look at me.” I tipped her chin up. “I’m miserable. I’m so fucking miserable without you.” She started to cry again, and I pulled her back in and held her. This was the longest talk we’d had about this. I don’t know if she was just too tired and sick to shut me down, or if she just didn’t have anywhere to run to, stuck in my truck like she was, but it made me feel hopeful that she was at least talking to me about it. I nuzzled into her hair, breathed her in. “I don’t want any of it without you.” She shook her head against my chest. “I wish I could love you less. Maybe if I did, I could stomach taking this dream from you. But I don’t know how to even begin letting someone give up something like that for me. I would feel like apologizing every day of my life.” I took a deep breath. “You have no idea how much I wish I could go back and never put that shit in your head.” Her fingers opened and closed on my chest. I felt happy. Just sitting there in my truck in a Burger King parking lot, I felt more peace than I’d felt in weeks just because she was there with me, touching me, talking to me, telling me she loved me. And then that joy drained away when I remembered that this wasn’t going to last. She was going to leave again, and Brandon was still gone. But it was this temporary reprieve that told me that with her by my side, I could get through anything. I could navigate the worst days of my life as long as she stayed by me. If only she’d let me get her through the worst days of hers. She spoke against my chest. “You know you’re the only man I’ve ever cried over?” I laughed a little. “I saw you cry over Tyler. More than once.” She shook her head. “No. That was always about you. Because I was so in love with you and I knew I couldn’t be with you. You turned me into some sort of crazy person.” She lifted her head and looked at me. “I’m so proud to know you, Josh. And I feel so lucky to have been loved by someone like you.” She was crying, and I couldn’t keep my own eyes dry anymore. I just couldn’t. And I didn’t care if she saw me cry. I’d lost the two people I needed most in this life, and I’d never be ashamed for grieving over either one of them. I let the tears well, and she leaned in and kissed me. The gasp when she touched me and the tightness of her lips told me she was trying not to break down. She held my cheeks in her hands, and we kissed and held each other like we were saying goodbye—lovers about to be separated by an ocean or a war, desperate, and too grieved to let go. But she didn’t have to let me go. And she would anyway.

Ten Things I Need to Know" The brightest stars are the first to explode. Also hearts. It is important to pay attention to love’s high voltage signs. The mockingbird is really ashamed of its own feeble song lost beneath all those he has to imitate. It’s true, the Carolina Wren caught in the bedroom yesterday died because he stepped on a glue trap and tore his wings off. Maybe we have both fallen through the soul’s thin ice already. Even Ethiopia is splitting off from Africa to become its own continent. Last year it moved 10 feet. This will take a million years. There’s always this nostalgia for the days when Time was so unreal it touched us only like the pale shadow of a hawk. Parmenedes transported himself above the beaten path of the stars to find the real that was beyond time. The words you left are still smoldering like the cigarette left in my ashtray as if it were a dying star. The thin thread of its smoke is caught on the ceiling. When love is threatened, the heart crackles with anger like kindling. It’s lucky we are not like hippos who fling dung at each other with their ridiculously tiny tails. Okay, that’s more than ten things I know. Let’s try twenty five, no, let’s not push it, twenty. How many times have we hurt each other not knowing? Destiny wears her clothes inside out. Each desire is a memory of the future. The past is a fake cloud we’ve pasted to a paper sky. That is why our dreams are the most real thing we possess. My logic here is made of your smells, your thighs, your kiss, your words. I collect stars but have no place to put them. You take my breath away only to give back a purer one. The way you dance creates a new constellation. Off the Thai coast they have discovered a new undersea world with sharks that walk on their fins. In Indonesia, a kangaroo that lives in a tree. Why is the shadow I cast always yours? Okay, let’s say I list 33 things, a solid symbolic number. It’s good to have a plan so we don’t lose ourselves, but then who has taken the ladder out of the hole I’ve dug for myself? How can I revive the things I’ve killed inside you? The real is a sunset over a shanty by the river. The keys that lock the door also open it. When we shut out each other, nothing seems real except the empty caves of our hearts, yet how arrogant to think our problems finally matter when thousands of children are bayoneted in the Congo this year. How incredible to think of those soldiers never having loved. Nothing ever ends. Will this? Byron never knew where his epic, Don Juan, would end and died in the middle of it. The good thing about being dead is that you don’t have to go through all that dying again. You just toast it. See, the real is what the imagination decants. You can be anywhere with the turn of a few words. Some say the feeling of out-of-the-body travel is due to certain short circuits in parts of the brain. That doesn’t matter because I’m still drifting towards you. Inside you are cumulous clouds I could float on all night. The difference is always between what we say we love and what we love. Tonight, for instance, I could drink from the bowl of your belly. It doesn’t matter if our feelings shift like sands beneath the river, there’s still the river. Maybe the real is the way your palms fit against my face, or the way you hold my life inside you until it is nothing at all, the way this plant droops, this flower called Heart’s Bursting Flower, with its beads of red hanging from their delicate threads any breeze might break, any word might shatter, any hurt might crush. Superstition Reviews issue 2 fall 2008

Imagine you're on a boat that's bobbing under a bright sun. There's not a cloud in the sky above you, not even a wisp, and everywhere you look, clear water's dancing with light. You fill your lungs with air, as much as they'll hold, and then you draw a little more -- then you dive. You break into cool water and the sound of bubbles fills your ears as the heat of the day vanishes from your skin. Then quiet rushes in and your thoughts grow louder, louder, louder, till all you hear is yourself and the deep hum of the sea. If you stretch out like an arrow and kick, the first fathom's over quick. Now you're in the second fathom and your body wants to pop up like a cork. Kick with all your might down to the third. The water feels a little colder, and your ears ache like they'll burst. It's best to push the pressure out or it'll only hurt worse as you go deeper. The fourth and fifth's just kicking and swimming and letting go of some of the sunlight behind you. The sixth, you might panic a bit, thinking you need to breathe, but you don't. There's more breath in you than you think, so keep swimming 'cause you're almost there. Then, suddenly, you are. In the seventh fathom the sea's no longer wanting to spit you out. It wraps you up like a blanket, and you can relax and float now 'cause it's got you. It's holding you and you can just stay there, nothing pulling at you. Nothing pushing. Your heart beats real slow and you feel so calm, like you're drifting in a wakeful sleep. Now you can do your best daydreaming, 'cause it feels a little like you already are.

Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize. Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.