Neon Love Quotes

The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight!

I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her –after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred–I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever–for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)–and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again–and 'oh, no,' Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure–all would be shattered.

Walk with me, hand in hand through the neon and styrofoam. Walk the razor blades and the broken hearts. Walk the fortune and the fortune hunted. Walk the chop suey bars and the tract of stars. I know I am a fool, hoping dirt and glory are both a kind of luminous paint; the humiliations and exaltations that light us up. I see like a bug, everything too large, the pressure of infinity hammering at my head. But how else to live, vertical that I am, pressed down and pressing up simultaneously? I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other. The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.

nerves twitching in the sheets -- to face the sunlight again, that's clearly trouble. I like the city better when the neon lights are going and the nudies dance on top of the bar to the mauling music. I'm under this sheet thinking. me nerves are hampered by history -- the most memorable concern of mankind is the guys it takes to face the sunlight again. love begins at the meeting of two strangers. love for the world is impossible. I'd rather stay in bed and sleep. dizzied by the days and the streets and the years I pull the sheets to my neck. I turn my ass to the wall. I hate the mornings more than any man.

I love you," Amir told her. Samirah stumbled backwards like she'd been hit in the face with a giant eagle egg. Alex propped her up. "I ... yes," Sam squeaked. "Also. Too." Amir nodded. He turned and got into his car. A moment later, his tail-lights disappeared down Flagship Way. Samirah smacked her own forehead. "Also? Too? I am such an idiot." Alex patted her arm. "I thought you were quite eloquent. Come on sister. Your neon-yellow warship awaits.

My whole body goes heavy as the truth settles in my bones. I love this woman. I have to steel myself to keep from doing exactly what I said, from dropping to my knees and begging her to stay.

It's my uniform. Everyone in my company wears it." "It's hideous." Rose felt her hackles rise. The neon green uniform was hideous, but she didn't appreciate him pointing it out. She opened her mouth. "Yet despite it, you look lovely," he said. "Flattery will get you nowhere," she told him. "It's not flattery," he said coldly. "Flattery requires exaggeration. I'm merely stating a fact. You're a beautiful woman wearing an ugly sack of unnatural color.

I didn't know that would be the last time I'd see him, his neck scar lit blue by the diner's neon marquee. To see that little comma again, to put my mouth there, let my shadow widen the scar until, at last, there was no scar to be seen at all, just a vast and equal dark sealed by my lips. A comma superimposed by a period the mouth so naturally makes. Isn't that the saddest thing in the world, Ma? A comma forced to be a period?

Hey, Max," I whispered. "I love you, too." The smile that lit up his face was brighter than the neon lights radiating from the London Eye. But mine felt even brighter. Like my future.

what I have done is risked everything for that hour, that hour in the black night, where one flashing light looks like love, I have pulled over my body’s car and let myself believe that the dance was only for me, that this gift of a breathing one-who-wants was always a gift, was the only sign worth stopping for, that the neon glow was a real star, gleaming in its dying, like us all, like us all.

WILL YOU DANCE WITH ME As we stand here, Hand in hand, Under the neon lights Of Truth and Love. I'm asking you to Dance with me. To twirl, Kick, Drop, Jump, And fly With me. Skidding and Sliding across The dancefloor of life, I want you to Glide with me. Through the Saddest and Happiest songs, The fastest highs To the longest and Slowest lows, I want you to Flow through Them all With Me.

Love isn't just about the good. It's fortified by the bad.

To Have Without Holding: Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimpering in the rooms rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds that thwack like rubber bands in an open palm. It hurts to love wide open stretching the muscles that feel as if they are made of wet plaster, then of blunt knives, then of sharp knives. It hurts to thwart the reflexes of grab, of clutch, to love and let go again and again. It pesters to remember the lover who is not in the bed, to hold back what is owed to the work that gutters like a candle in a cave without air, to love consciously, conscientiously, concretely, constructively. I can't do it, you say it's killing me, but you thrive, you glow on the street like a neon raspberry, You float and sail, a helium balloon bright bachelor's buttons blue and bobbing on the cold and hot winds of our breath, as we make and unmake in passionate diastole and systole the rhythm of our unbound bonding, to have and not to hold, to love with minimized malice, hunger and anger moment by moment balanced.

I showed up rich while feeling poor I didn’t knock but they opened the door Throwing stones, they pierce my eye Leave tiny cracks all down my spine We were royalty without a throne Our castle didn’t feel like home Echoes of “I love you” in the halls Our words absorbed into the walls I checked us in so we couldn’t leave Thought maybe time would make me believe If I took us back to the starting line We’d never cross the finish line My hands may not be red But my heart, it feels the bleed If my soul had a neon sign It would read No Vacancy If my soul had a neon sign It would read No Vacancy

Oh yes, In Love, that demented rose-red circus tent whose half-light forgives all visuals, fig-leaves our lovers, and softens our own brains and the pain of our sawdust pratfalls.   So tempting, that midway faux-marble arch, both funfair and classical— so Greek, so Barnum, such a beacon, with a sign in gas-blue neon:   Love! This way! In!

So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could have looked up into its cream and orange sky and seen the most spectacular show ever--fireworks lighting up the Jovian night with a trillion streaks of brilliant crimson, what scientists call neon rain.

So I thought I’d feel different afterward, after the visible neon sign proclaiming 'virgin' had blinked out on my forehead. I’d spent years obessessing about it, so it seemed like somthing should have changed. Maybe it would have if I’d still been at Ceder Falls High School surrounded by the gossip and the braggadocio of teenage boys. But on my uncle's farm, nobody noticed, or at least nobody said anything. The next day, like every day, we dug corn, chopped wood, and carried water. And it didn’t really change much between Darla and me, either. Yes, making love was fun, but it wasn’t really any more fun than anything we’d already been doing together. Just different.

I kept waiting for the part where I’d finally know who I was — some flashing, neon moment of relief, but it never came.

She told him once, I think they were drunk, that he could never keep a garden until he learned how to love pretty things without destroying them.

Love has a glow, like a neon light having sex with a pack of hi-lighters, only not quite as quaint.

I didn't want to fall in love with you. I knew the risk and understood the consequences. All the warning signs had been in bright blinking neon lights. Telling me to run before I even got near. But our hearts are animals driven by instinct: it only wants and wants and wants. Mine simply wanted you.

He loved the city most at night. The night hid many of the sorrows. It silenced the city yet brought deep undercurrents to the surface. It was in this dark slipstream that he believed he moved most freely. Behind the cover of shadows. Like a rider in a limousine, he looked out but no one looked in. There was a random feel to the dark, the quirkiness of chance played out in the blue neon light. So many ways to live. And to die.

We were prime examples of the age old debate: nature versus nurture. I’d been brought up around muscle cars and crescent wrenches, and he’d been surrounded by neon lights and stilettos. In all likelihood, I should’ve been straight as an arrow, and Frank would’ve ended up as a showgirl. Yet, he was the top, if only in bed. We both knew who wore the pants in the relationship, even though they were big on me because they were his.

What does Christian know about love? Seems he didn’t get the unconditional love he was entitled to during his very early years. My heart twists, and my mother’s words waft like a zephyr through my mind: Yes, Ana. Hell, what do you need? A neon sign flashing on his forehead? She thinks Christian loves me, but then she’s my mother, of course she’d think that. She thinks I deserve the best of everything. I frown. It’s true, and in a moment of startling clarity, I see it. It’s very simple; I want his love. I need Christian Grey to love me. This is why I am so reticent about our relationship – because on some basic, fundamental level, I recognize within me a deep-seated compulsion to be loved and cherished.

The tone of his voice is like he expects a fight, like he’s challenging me to disagree, and I want to tell him that I don’t care one way or the other. That her blood-relative status makes no difference as long as she loves him. And she does. She wears it, beaming it around like a neon sign.

A part of one’s soul remains asleep until one has loved an animal.” -Shenita Etwaroo

In the distance, a Benz motor sounds. A neon light wraps itself around the driver and the winter that beats in his heart. His heart stays cold. stays melting.

I wonder why she hides her pretty eyes, Behind those Wayfarers, it’s such a waste, Is it sadness or the neon lights?

Boldly you must hang your light. Neon, buzzing, bright. And do not be chagrined when your light blinks. It is a silent song of yes, you, you are welcome here. Boldly give your love and arrive at your joy.

Aurora shuddered, her face white with anger. The only thing worse than having to compete for Gold Stars was not being allowed to compete anymore. Muting was the Neon God’s favourite punishment, for He loved to hijack human language, almost as much as He loved hijacking perfectly human societal norms. Judging people on their supposed worth was His favourite pastime, and God forbid you didn’t follow His arbitrarily-chosen set of beliefs, which appeared to change every hour. Under the Neon God’s law, innocent words such as “powerline” or “screwdriver” had become obscene, trigger words that would most definitely get you muted, thrown in a Mind Prison or killed.

I've never been to the ocean, never heard the waves lick the sand in that quiet shushing you read about in books. I've never been to the zoo, smelled the elephant piss, and heard the cries of the monkeys. I've never had frozen yogurt from one of those places where you pull on the handle and fill your own cup with whatever you like. I've never eaten dinner at a restaurant with napkins that you set on your lap and silverware that isn't plastic. I've never painted my nails like the other girls at school, in bright neons and decadent reds. I've never been more than ten miles from home. Ten miles. It's like I live in the forever ago, not where buses rumble and trains have racks. I've never had a birthday cake, though I've wanted one very much. I've never owned a bra that is new, and had to cut the tags off with the scissors from the kitchen drawer. I've never been loved in a way that makes me feel as if I was supposed to be born, if only to feel loved. I've never, I've never, I've never. And it's my own fault. The things that we never do because someone makes us fearful of them, or makes us believe we don't deserve them. I want to do all my nevers-- alone or with someone who matters. I don't care. I just want to live.

In the ensuing silence, I have the time to contemplate the word cute – how dismissive it is, how it’s the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, “Feel Bad About Yourself.

Scripture breathes wisdom like we breathe oxygen. It can't not. Through Scripture, God reveals himself. This wisdom cannot be captured, let alone contained, on a neon bumper sticker or rubber bracelet. Wisdom itself invites us to go deeper- right into a relationship with God himself. Through wisdom, we learn to love God and love what he loves. We find rich counsel on the life we were meant for- in our families, communities, and world. We discover our personal responsibilities to others. And we unearth how to put love into action." -Organic God

But no life was without it's strain & strife, not if it was fully lived. Opening up to experience, even the good ones like trust & love, was to open yourself up to the pain. I suppose the key was to not compound matters by making the rest of it unnecessarily hard. My need for control had certainly done that in the past. So I made a promise to myself in that moment. I would make a concerted effort to reach for what was soft & good in this world. I'd find a place to settle into, and hold still so that this world's good and soft could reach back & touch me as well.

To have without holding Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimpering in the rooms rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds that thwack like rubber bands in an open palm. It hurts to love wide open stretching the muscles that feel as if they are made of wet plaster, then of blunt knives, then of sharp knives. It hurts to thwart the reflexes of grab, of clutch ; to love and let go again and again. It pesters to remember the lover who is not in the bed, to hold back what is owed to the work that gutters like a candle in a cave without air, to love consciously, conscientiously, concretely, constructively. I can’t do it, you say it’s killing me, but you thrive, you glow on the street like a neon raspberry, You float and sail, a helium balloon bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing on the cold and hot winds of our breath, as we make and unmake in passionate diastole and systole the rhythm of our unbound bonding, to have and not to hold, to love with minimized malice, hunger and anger moment by moment balanced.

Peridots and periwinkle blue medallions Gilded galleons spilled across the ocean floor Treasure somewhere in the sea and he will find where Never mind the questions there's no answer for The roll of the harbor wake The songs that the rigging makes The taste of the spray he takes And he learns to give He aches and he learns to live He stakes all his silver On a promise to be free Mermaids live in colonies All his sea dreams come to me City satins left at home I will not need them I believe him when he tells of loving me Something truthful in the sea all lies will find you Leave behind your streets he said and come to me Come down from the neon lights Come down from the tourist sights Run down till the rain delights You do not hide Sunlight will renew your pride Skin white by skin golden Like a promise to be free Dolphins playing in the sea All his sea dreams come to me Seabird I have seen you fly above the pilings I am smiling at your circles in the air I will come and sit by you while he lies sleeping Fold your fleet wings I have brought some dreams to share A dream that you love someone A dream that the wars are done A dream that you tell no one but the gray sea They'll say that you're crazy And a dream of a baby Like a promise to be free Children laughing out to sea All his sea dreams come to me

At the end of the night, I hug my boys and tell them I love them. The words come out easy and the hugs linger with the knowledge of not knowing when the next hug will be given. We punch each other's chests after hugs, lightly, before getting into our separate cabs or cars and speeding off toward a few hours of sleep before our separate airport trips. From the back of my car, underneath waves of glowing neon lights flooding into the windows, I think about how often me and the boys I knew and know were taught to love each other through expressions of violence. How, if that is our baseline for love, it might be impossible for us to love anyone well, including ourselves.

Her laugh was my favorite sound, and I think I was her favorite reason to laugh.

no one loves like a dog. He or she will win you over before you know it.

Grief is a giant neon sign, broadcasting loudly, “Love was here.” In the finer print, quietly, “Love still is.

Although the body of each living creature may be different, the soul remains the same.” -Shenita Etwaroo

The day we become silent about the things that matter is the moment our lives begin to end.” -Shenita Etwaroo

It's never love, as soon as you feel the next love. Because isn't that a prerequisite of the condition? That you tell yourself everything that came before wasn't really it.

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.

There are only so many methods of holding power. Fear, love, loyalty. The latter two are fickle at best, the first difficult to acquire unless you are willing to get your hands dirty.

Every night is Christmas Eve on old East Main, Sailors and their sweethearts all agree. Neon signs of red and green Shine upon the friendly scene, Welcoming you in from off the sea. Santa's bag is filled with all your dreams come true: Nickel beers that sparkle like champagne, Barmaids who all love to screw, All of them reminding you It's Christmas Eve on old East Main.

My old man 16 years old during the depression I’d come home drunk and all my clothing– shorts, shirts, stockings– suitcase, and pages of short stories would be thrown out on the front lawn and about the street. my mother would be waiting behind a tree: “Henry, Henry, don’t go in . . .he’ll kill you, he’s read your stories . . .” “I can whip his ass . . .” “Henry, please take this . . .and find yourself a room.” but it worried him that I might not finish high school so I’d be back again. one evening he walked in with the pages of one of my short stories (which I had never submitted to him) and he said, “this is a great short story.” I said, “o.k.,” and he handed it to me and I read it. it was a story about a rich man who had a fight with his wife and had gone out into the night for a cup of coffee and had observed the waitress and the spoons and forks and the salt and pepper shakers and the neon sign in the window and then had gone back to his stable to see and touch his favorite horse who then kicked him in the head and killed him. somehow the story held meaning for him though when I had written it I had no idea of what I was writing about. so I told him, “o.k., old man, you can have it.” and he took it and walked out and closed the door. I guess that’s as close as we ever got.

Inside my skin, loving you, I am this space my body believes in. — Yuself Komunyakaa, from “Unnatural State of the Unicorn,” Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems. (Wesleyan University Press 1993)

Read. You should read Bukowski and Ferlinghetti, read Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and listen to Coltrane, Nina Simone, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Son House, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Nick Drake, Bobbie Gentry, George Jones, Jimmy Reed, Odetta, Funkadelic, and Woody Guthrie. Drive across America. Ride trains. Fly to countries beyond your comfort zone. Try different things. Join hands across the water. Different foods. New tasks. Different menus and tastes. Talk with the guy who’s working in construction on your block, who’s working on the highway you’re traveling on. Speak with your neighbors. Get to know them. Practice civil disobedience. Try new resistance. Be part of the solution, not the problem. Don’t litter the earth, it’s the only one you have, learn to love her. Care for her. Learn another language. Trust your friends with kindness. You will need them one day. You will need earth one day. Do not fear death. There are worse things than death. Do not fear the reaper. Lie in the sunshine but from time to time let the neon light your way. ZZ Top, Jefferson Airplane, Spirit. Get a haircut. Dye your hair pink or blue. Do it for you. Wear eyeliner. Your eyes are the windows to your soul. Show them off. Wear a feather in your cap. Run around like the Mad Hatter. Perhaps he had the answer. Visit the desert. Go to the zoo. Go to a county fair. Ride the Ferris wheel. Ride a horse. Pet a pig. Ride a donkey. Protest against war. Put a peace symbol on your automobile. Drive a Volkswagen. Slow down for skateboarders. They might have the answers. Eat gingerbread men. Pray to the moon and the stars. God is out there somewhere. Don’t worry. You’ll find out where soon enough. Dance. Even if you don’t know how to dance. Read The Four Agreements. Read the Bible. Read the Bhagavad Gita. Join nothing. It won’t help. No games, no church, no religion, no yellow-brick road, no way to Oz. Wear beads. Watch a caterpillar in the sun.

Tuck watched the sun bubble into the ocean. Columns of vertical cumulus clouds turned to cones of pink cotton candy, then as the sun became a red wafer on the horizon, they turned candy-apple red, with purple rays reaching out of them like searchlights. The water was neon over wet asphalt, blood-spattered gunmetal—colors from the cover of a detective novel where heroes drink hard and beauty is always treacherous.

*One clue that there’s something not quite real about sequential time the way you experience it is the various paradoxes of time supposedly passing and of a so-called ‘present’ that’s always unrolling into the future and creating more and more past behind it. As if the present were this car—nice car by the way—and the past is the road we’ve just gone over, and the future is the headlit road up ahead we haven’t yet gotten to, and time is the car’s forward movement, and the precise present is the car’s front bumper as it cuts through the fog of the future, so that it’s now and then a tiny bit later a whole different now, etc. Except if time is really passing, how fast does it go? At what rate does the present change? See? Meaning if we use time to measure motion or rate—which we do, it’s the only way you can—95 miles per hour, 70 heartbeats a minute, etc.—how are you supposed to measure the rate at which time moves? One second per second? It makes no sense. You can’t even talk about time flowing or moving without hitting up against paradox right away. So think for a second: What if there’s really no movement at all? What if this is all unfolding in the one flash you call the present, this first, infinitely tiny split-second of impact when the speeding car’s front bumper’s just starting to touch the abutment, just before the bumper crumples and displaces the front end and you go violently forward and the steering column comes back at your chest as if shot out of something enormous? Meaning that what if in fact this now is infinite and never really passes in the way your mind is supposedly wired to understand pass, so that not only your whole life but every single humanly conceivable way to describe and account for that life has time to flash like neon shaped into those connected cursive letters that businesses’ signs and windows love so much to use through your mind all at once in the literally immeasurable instant between impact and death, just as you start forward to meet the wheel at a rate no belt ever made could restrain—THE END." footnote ("Good Old Neon")

This is a sad town,” he said. “One can be here 10 years and not make enough friends to count. Anything with any character, any history, they will tear it down and they will put in a neon sign. Or something in plastic.

tell me off or worse—beat me? What can I say? I stare momentarily out of the window. The car is heading back across the bridge. We are both shrouded in darkness, masking our thoughts and feelings, but we don’t need the night for that. “Why, Anastasia?” Christian presses me for an answer. I shrug, trapped. I don’t want to lose him. In spite of all his demands, his need to control, his scary vices, I have never felt as alive as I do now. It’s a thrill to be sitting here beside him. He’s so unpredictable, sexy, smart, and funny. But his moods…oh—and he wants to hurt me. He says he’ll think about my reservations, but it still scares me. I close my eyes. What can I say? Deep down I would just like more, more affection, more playful Christian, more…love. He squeezes my hand. “Talk to me, Anastasia. I don’t want to lose you. This last week…” We’re coming near to the end of the bridge, and the road is once more bathed in the neon light of the street lamps so his face is intermittently in the light and the dark. And it’s such a

It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it’s tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you’re offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you’re using the word calve as a verb.) I saw hundreds of them, cathedrals of ice, rubbed like salt licks; shipwrecks, polished from wear like marble steps at the Vatican; Lincoln Centers capsized and pockmarked; airplane hangars carved by Louise Nevelson; thirty-story buildings, impossibly arched like out of a world’s fair; white, yes, but blue, too, every blue on the color wheel, deep like a navy blazer, incandescent like a neon sign, royal like a Frenchman’s shirt, powder like Peter Rabbit’s cloth coat, these icy monsters roaming the forbidding black.

He didn’t tell her about the waking fucking hell that was the deterioration of a marriage, the bottomless black hole that was the love of your life turning into a stranger, the heartbreak, mind-break, body-break, everything-break of a breakup of that kind, that all that agony was far more intense, dense, and crushingly huge an experience than was the love that had preceded it. Unrequited love, that was a walk in the park. Or, rather, a delicious itch to scratch. Who cares if the itch worsens the more you scratch? Keep on scratching, deliciously.

To You" What is more beautiful than night and someone in your arms that’s what we love about art it seems to prefer us and stays if the moon or a gasping candle sheds a little light or even dark you become a landscape in a landscape with rocks and craggy mountains and valleys full of sweaty ferns breathing and lifting into the clouds which have actually come low as a blanket of aspirations’ blue for once not a melancholy color because it is looking back at us there’s no need for vistas we are one in the complicated foreground of space the architects are most courageous because it stands for all to see and for a long long time just as the words “I’ll always love you" impulsively appear in the dark sky and we are happy and stick by them like a couple of painters in neon allowing the light to glow there over the river

(This is from a tribute poem to Ronnie James Dio: Former lead vocalist of the band Rainbow, Black Sabbath. This is written with all the titles of the hit songs of DIO. The titles are all in upper case) You can “CATCH THE RAINBOW” – “A RAINBOW IN THE DARK” Through “ROCK & ROLL CHILDREN” “HOLY DIVER” will lurk “BEFORE THE FALL” of “ELECTRA” “ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY” “JESUS,MARY AND THE HOLY GHOST”- “LORD OF THE LAST DAY” “MASTER OF THE MOON” you are When my “ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE” With our “BLACK”, “COLD FEET”, “MYSTERY” of “PAIN” you crave You’re “CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE”, “BETWEEN TWO HEARTS” When “HUNGRY FOR HEAVEN” “HUNTER OF THE HEART” hurts “FALLEN ANGELS” “FEED MY HEART” “FEVER DREAMS” “FEED MY HEAD” “I AM” “ANOTHER LIE” “AFTER ALL (THE DEAD)” Not “GUILTY” if you “HIDE IN THE RAINBOW’’ With your perfect “GUITAR SOLO” “DON’T TELL THE KIDS” to “DREAM EVIL” Don’t “GIVE HER THE GUN” to follow “DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS” Those “EVIL EYES” can see “LORD OF THE NIGHT” “MISTREATED”; “MY EYES” hate to fancy “SHAME ON THE NIGHT” “TURN UP THE NIGHT” Now it’s “TIME TO BURN” “TWISTED” “VOODOO” does “WALK ON WATER” And today its our turn “BLOOD FROM A STONE” “BORN ON THE SUN” I’m “BETTER IN THE DARK” “BREATHLESS” The “PRISONER OF PARADISE” you are! Forever you are deathless “SACRED HEART” “SHIVERS” Laying “NAKED IN THE RAIN” “THIS IS YOUR LIFE”- “ WILD ONE”! Your “GOLDEN RULES” we gain “IN DREAMS” “I SPEED AT NIGHT” I’m “LOSING MY INSANITY” “ANOTHER LIE”: “COMPUTER GOD” Your “HEAVEN AND HELL”- my vanity! By “KILLING THE DRAGON” “I COULD HAVE BEEN A DREAMER” I’m “THE LAST IN LINE” To “SCREAM” Like an “INVISIBLE” screamer Now that you are gone “THE END OF THE WORLD” is here “STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART” “PUSH” “JUST ANOTHER DAY” in fear “CHILDREN OF THE SEA” “ DYING IN AMERICA” Is it “DEATH BY LOVE”? “FACES IN THE WINDOW” looking for A “GYPSY” from above Dear “STARGAZER” from “STRANGE HIGHWAYS” Our love “HERE’S TO YOU” “WE ROCK” “ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD” The “OTHER WORLD” anew “ONE NIGHT IN THE CITY” with “NEON KNIGHTS” “THE EYES” “STAY OUT OF MY MIND” The “STARSTRUCK” “SUNSET SUPERMAN” Is what we long to find “THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING” Is the “INSTITUTIONAL MAN” “SHOOT SHOOT” to “TURN TO STONE” “WHEN A WOMAN CRIES” to plan To “STAND UP AND SHOUT” before “ THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL” Though “GOD HATES HEAVY METAL” “EAT YOUR HEART OUT” to reach the goal. From the poem- Holy Dio: the Diver (A tribute to Ronnie James Dio)

But where should he begin? - Well, then, the trouble with the English was their: Their: In a word, Gibreel solemnly pronounced, their weather. Gibreel Farishta floating on his cloud formed the opinion that the moral fuzziness of the English was meteorologically induced. 'When the day is not warmer than the night,' he reasoned, 'when the light is not brighter than the dark, when the land is not drier than the sea, then clearly a people will lose the power to make distinctions, and commence to see everything - from political parties to sexual partners to religious beliefs - as much-the-same, nothing-to-choose, give-or-take. What folly! For truth is extreme, it is so and not thus, it is him and not her; a partisan matter, not a spectator sport. It is, in brief, heated. City,' he cried, and his voice rolled over the metropolis like thunder, 'I am going to tropicalize you.' Gibreel enumerated the benefits of the proposed metamorphosis of London into a tropical city: increased moral definition, institution of a national siesta, development of vivid and expansive patterns of behaviour among the populace, higher-quality popular music, new birds in the trees (macaws, peacocks, cockatoos), new trees under the birds (coco-palms, tamarind, banyans with hanging beards). Improved street-life, outrageously coloured flowers (magenta, vermilion, neon-green), spider-monkeys in the oaks. A new mass market for domestic air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, anti-mosquito coils and sprays. A coir and copra industry. Increased appeal of London as a centre for conferences, etc.: better cricketeers; higher emphasis on ball-control among professional footballers, the traditional and soulless English commitment to 'high workrate' having been rendered obsolete by the heat. Religious fervour, political ferment, renewal of interest in the intellegentsia. No more British reserve; hot-water bottles to be banished forever, replaced in the foetid nights by the making of slow and odorous love. Emergence of new social values: friends to commence dropping in on one another without making appointments, closure of old-folks' homes, emphasis on the extended family. Spicier foods; the use of water as well as paper in English toilets; the joy of running fully dressed through the first rains of the monsoon. Disadvantages: cholera, typhoid, legionnaires' disease, cockroaches, dust, noise, a culture of excess. Standing upon the horizon, spreading his arms to fill the sky, Gibreel cried: 'Let it be.

I looked over at the colorful pile of small shoes. Their neon colors glowed dimly in the shadows. I raised the curtain of the mosque to bring light into this dark place. Herat’s warm winds covered us in the dust. I believe that on that day in that sacred place, God smiled on us and loved us more than ever before.

Every time he told me that he really liked me, my face turned neon pink, and my whole body glowed with happiness. I never thought I’d feel like this again. I never thought I’d meet anyone who could make me feel like this. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy. All I knew was that it had been a while.

He loved the energy of the place, though he barely ever visited without getting shoved around or having his pockets picked. The slam of the city, the assault of neon and electric light, the roiling mass of people, made up of mixed elements: sailors, tourists, cops, hookers, hustlers and dealers. He wandered through the crowds, fascinated; a skinny boy with big teeth and glasses, his ribs sticking out. At the same time he was drawn to quieter, more inward pursuits. He liked to draw, liked going to the movies on his own or wandering round the dioramas in the Natural History Museum; the dusty smell, the long unpopulated corridors.

It didn’t make much sense to me; as far as I was concerned, sex was one of the four essential food groups along with alcohol, red meat, and whatever the fourth one was. Coffee, probably. But that’s the thing about your friends: you don’t always have to understand them, you just have to respect them and love them for who they are.

There are no angels yet here comes an angel one shut-off the dark side of the moon turning to me and saying: I am the plumed serpent the beast with fangs of fire and a gentle heart But he doesn’t say that His message drenches his body he’d want to kill me for using words to name him I sit in the bare apartment reading words stream past me poetry twentieth-century rivers disturbed surfaces reflecting clouds reflecting wrinkled neon but clogged and mostly nothing alive left in their depths The angel is barely speaking to me Once in a horn of light he stood or someone like him salutations in gold-leaf ribboning from his lips Today again the hair streams to his shoulders the eyes reflect something like a lost country or so I think but the ribbon has reeled itself up He isn’t giving or taking any shit We glance miserably across the room at each other It’s true there are moments closer and closer together when words stick in my throat ‘the art of love’ ‘the art of words’ I get your message Gabriel just will you stay looking straight at me awhile longer

The wind whistles down into the skyscraper-bound canyons, across the broad expanses of the avenues and the narrow confines of the streets, where lives unfolded in secret, day in, day out: Sometimes a man sighs for want of love. Sometimes a child cries for the dropped lollipop, its sweetness barely tasted. Sometimes the girl gasps as the train screams into the station, shaken by how close she’d allowed herself to wander to the edge. Sometimes the drunk raises weary eyes to the rows of building rendered beautiful by a brief play of sunlight. “Lord?” he whispers into the held breath between taxi horns. The light catches on a city spire, fracturing for a second into glorious rays before the clouds move in again. The drunk lowers his eyes. “Lord, Lord…” he sobs, as if answering his own broken prayer. […] Another day closes. The sun sinks low on the horizon. It slips below the Hudson, smearing the West Side of Manhattan in a slick of gold. Night arrives for its watchful shift. The neon city bursts its daytime seams, and the great carnival of dreams begins again.

    "I'm a guy like this," Gino explained to Jeanie; "I like anythin' against the odds. I don't like nothin' safe. I'm a guy like this too: I don't like gettin' caught. But mostly I'm a guy like this: I don't like gettin' laughed at."     He lived as he drove, as he gambled and as he loved: for keeps. Taking no man's laughter. And letting the small stakes go.

Everything seemed bright and different after so long in the darkness. Even though most of the businesses were closed, there was one neon sign lit in the window of a narrow storefront. COFFEE AND PIE, it read. Two bikes were parked just outside. On the boardwalk, in the thrown light of the neon sign, his head dipped down as I pulled my fingers through his hair. The night still in progress, with daylight hours away.

    "You ever been arrested before?"     "No sir. This is my first time."     "The first time this week, you mean."     "Oh, I been arrested in Michigan. I thought you meant in Illinois. I never been arrested in Illinois. I never did no wrong in Illinois."     "What good does that do you?"     "It don't. It's just that I love my state so much I go to Michigan to steal," he explained with an expression almost beatific.

We pass a church with a massive blue neon cross, and I am spiritually lifted by feelings of great religiosity. No, I’m not, for crying out loud. Don’t be ridiculous. But what I do love about this road is how the gaudy becomes grand, how tastelessness is a way of everyday life. You have to admire how these people shamelessly try to get your attention as you drive by, whether they’re trying to feed you a hamburger or a savior. (p.37)

What happened to your arm?" she asked me one night in the Gentleman Loser, the three of us drinking at a small table in a corner. Hang-gliding," I said, "accident." Hang-gliding over a wheatfield," said Bobby, "place called Kiev. Our Jack's just hanging there in the dark, under a Nightwing parafoil, with fifty kilos of radar jammed between his legs, and some Russian asshole accidentally burns his arm off with a laser." I don't remember how I changed the subject, but I did. I was still telling myself that it wasn't Rikki who getting to me, but what Bobby was doing with her. I'd known him for a long time, since the end of the war, and I knew he used women as counters in a game, Bobby Quine versus fortune, versus time and the night of cities. And Rikki had turned up just when he needed something to get him going, something to aim for. So he'd set her up as a symbol for everything he wanted and couldn't have, everything he'd had and couldn't keep. I didn't like having to listen to him tell me how much he loved her, and knowing he believed it only made it worse. He was a past master at the hard fall and the rapid recovery, and I'd seen it happen a dozen times before. He might as well have had next printed across his sunglasses in green Day-Glo capitals, ready to flash out at the first interesting face that flowed past the tables in the Gentleman Loser. I knew what he did to them. He turned them into emblems, sigils on the map of his hustler' s life, navigation beacons he could follow through a sea of bars and neon. What else did he have to steer by? He didn't love money, in and of itself , not enough to follow its lights. He wouldn't work for power over other people; he hated the responsibility it brings. He had some basic pride in his skill, but that was never enough to keep him pushing. So he made do with women. When Rikki showed up, he needed one in the worst way. He was fading fast, and smart money was already whispering that the edge was off his game. He needed that one big score, and soon, because he didn't know any other kind of life, and all his clocks were set for hustler's time, calibrated in risk and adrenaline and that supernal dawn calm that comes when every move's proved right and a sweet lump of someone else's credit clicks into your own account.

Most of my friends didn’t believe in destiny. Nothing supernatural, nothing sent from above... no magic, no fate, just life, circumstances, and probability. But there were many signs from the universe pointing to Xuan. I never thought my love story would begin as a blockbuster, but everything that happened seemed like a big neon celestial sign that we were meant to be together. My friends would never understand, not really. If I hadn’t met Xuan, I would likely feel the same as them.

I love the way the rain melts the colors together, like a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. There is a moment, just after sunset, when the shops turn on their lights and steam starts to fog up the windows of the cafés. In French, this twilight time implies a hint of danger. It's called entre chien et loup, between the dog and the wolf. It was just beginning to get dark as we walked through the small garden of Palais Royal. We watched as carefully dressed children in toggled peacoats and striped woolen mittens finished the same game of improvised soccer we had seen in the Place Sainte Marthe. Behind the Palais Royal the wide avenues around the Louvre gave way to narrow streets, small boutiques, and bistros. It started to drizzle. Gwendal turned a corner, and tucked in between two storefronts, barely wider than a set of double doors, I found myself staring down a corridor of fairy lights. A series of arches stretched into the distance, topped with panes of glass, like a greenhouse, that echoed the plip-plop of the rain. It was as if we'd stepped through the witch's wardrobe, the phantom tollbooth, what have you, into another era. The Passage Vivienne was nineteenth-century Paris's answer to a shopping mall, a small interior street lined with boutiques and tearooms where ladies could browse at their leisure without wetting the bustles of their long dresses or the plumes of their new hats. It was certainly a far cry from the shopping malls of my youth, with their piped-in Muzak and neon food courts. Plaster reliefs of Greek goddesses in diaphanous tunics lined the walls. Three-pronged brass lamps hung from the ceiling on long chains. About halfway down, there was an antique store selling nothing but old kitchenware- ridged ceramic bowls for hot chocolate, burnished copper molds in the shape of fish, and a pewter mold for madeleines, so worn around the edges it might have belonged to Proust himself. At the end of the gallery, underneath a clock held aloft by two busty angels, was a bookstore. There were gold stencils on the glass door. Maison fondée en 1826.

A long time back, I used to listen to a song by Dennis Wilson. It was from Pacific Ocean Blue, the album he made after The Beach Boys fell apart. There was a line in it I loved: Loneliness is a very special place. As a teenager, sitting on my bed on autumn evenings, I used to imagine that place as a city, perhaps at dusk, when everyone turns homeward and the neon flickers into life. I recognised myself even then as one of its citizens and I liked how Wilson claimed it; how he made it sound fertile as well as frightening.

I took one step toward him and he took the sign as if it was in neon paint. Which it was. Neon paint with klieg lights. It said kiss me. Before I could complete the thought, I was against the wall and his lips were on mine. There was a fierceness to his mouth, a hunger that was the opposite of cold professionalism. His tongue fed me and his hands owned me. I could have melted into him so easily. I could have given myself over and loved every minute of it. I wanted to. My body wanted to. Every nerve in my body vibrated for him.

I watched an orange-red crane turning against the blue background of the sky. I watched a black insect that drew a broad, foaming, icy furrow across the heavens. The eternal youth of the world makes me feel breathless. Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me. Yesterday evening I was going up the Boulevard Raspail and the sky was crimson: it seemed to me that I was walking upon an unknown planet where the grass might be violet, the earth blue. It was trees hiding the red glare of a neon-light advertisement.

You’re not getting sick as much, you said. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.” “But my stomach.” Jade put her hand on her belly. “Twins, remember? I swear I’m growing by the hour.” He pulled her into his side, loving the soft feel of her against him. “You’re right. Besides, there’s the glow.” “What glow?” “The pregnancy glow. You have it.” “I do not.” He nudged her playfully. “You’re practically a neon sign.” “Stop it.” Ah, but he’d made her smile. Why did that make him feel like a million bucks? Like he could buy the world twice over with that smile. Of

Then I looked up. I didn't notice that your ears stick out, just a little, so you look like a pixie sometimes, or an elf. I didn't notice that the corners of you mouth always seem like they're trying to smile, while the rest of your mouth wants to pout. I didn't notice the little bump on your nose, near the bridge but slightly to the right-the bump I'd trace with my finger over and over, not soon enough. I didn't notice your long hands and rough finger-tips, or the dozens-is it hundreds?-of bracelets on your left wrist, made of busted guitar strings. I noticed your eyes, because they looked wet; maybe it was a trick of the light-the fluorescent and neon lights falling over your face from the bodega next door. But I didn't think about love, and I didn't see right down to your heart. But I must have stared-did I?-because there was your spirit, right there before me, and when you found my eyes I knew I'd pulled that spirit back from someplace amazing, not Greenpoint, not the summer sidewalk in front of Fish's bar, smelling of old alcohol and piss. But it must have been a trick of the light, because when you stood up, you were smiling, and your bright eyes looked alive and right there, with me, on Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, Earth.

My mint chocolate is delicious----and not at all leafy. Benny has made a mixed-berries-and-cream concoction that is, I hate to admit upon tasting it, next level. Nia, Seb, and Lily are brought in as the blind taste testers, and while they stress that both ice creams were excellent, two out of three prefer Benny's. He takes an obnoxious bow as the whole group---including me, grudgingly---gives him a round of applause. I try not to let my annoyance show until filming wraps up and most people disperse from the kitchen, at which point I take it out on a sticky spot on the counter where some batter spilled. "I think you got it all." Benny's voice is so close behind me that I nearly jump out of my shoes. "Keep scrubbing that hard and you'll wear a hole through the counter." "Keep minding your own business if you don't want me to wear a hole through your head, mister." He laughs as he leans against the counter beside me, one muscular forearm making its way into my line of sight. "I'm not even sure what that means, but you're cute when you're grumpy. Relax, Reese's Pieces. It's still early in the season and we're only oh-and-one. Not that anyone's keeping score." I grit my teeth but say no more, and soon enough he gets the picture and makes himself scarce. He's joking around, but I'm already all too aware of the score, picturing it in bold letters and neon lights: Benny---1, Reese---0.

I smiled as I stood by the curb. 4:20 in the morning. But you know what? I wanted to go somewhere, but not home. Only one place I could think of: Itaewon. Like destiny, an orange cab slowed down in front of me. I climbed in and yelled, "Hey Mister, Itaewon Fire Station." Had the streetlamps and neon signs always been this spectacularly bright? Why was Seoul so beautiful all of a sudden? Everything that was once nothing seemed special and amazing somehow. And wouldn't you know it, the taxi fare still was more than 10,000 won, even when the surcharge period was over. Only 20,000 won left on this card, how was I going to get home later? Eh, whatever. I'd survive. The traffic began getting bad at Hannam-dong. I hopped out in front of the CJ Building and ran the rest of the way to G—.

Neon Gods Neon Gods have drawn me to their altar With the promise that a better life won’t come. Now high on drugs my mind begins to falter, My body aches with phony martyrdom. Where are the friends that swore they’d be there? Where is the love that promised not to die? And when I’m gone, will anybody be here? And when I’m dead, will anybody cry? Sure times are low, and life seems hard and rotten. But up’s the only way there’s left to go. Though my friends have left me I have not forgotten That loving is the only way to grow. I can hope that I will have new things to dream of. I can hope that there’s a better life to come. Though I know it ain’t easy to find new love, I know that loving is the only way to grow. I’m still alive, I will survive. I’ll be there tomorrow, I will arrive. I’m a man, and you can plan I’ll be there tomorrow, I will arrive.

Julie Seagle stared straight ahead and promised herself one thing: She would never again rent an apartment via Craigslist. The strap of her overstuffed suitcase dug into her shoulder, and she let it drop onto the two suitcases that sat on the sidewalk. It wasn’t as if she had anywhere to carry them now. Julie squinted in disbelief at the flashing neon sign that touted the best burritos in Boston. Rereading the printout of the email again did nothing to change things. Yup, this was the correct address. While she did love a good burrito, and the small restaurant had a certain charm about it, it seemed pretty clear that the one-story building did not include a three-bedroom apartment that could house college students. She sighed and pulled her cell phone from her purse. “Hi, Mom.” “Honey! I gather you made it to Boston? Ohio is missing you already. I can’t believe you’re already off at college. How is the apartment? Have you met your roommates yet?” Julie cleared her throat and looked at the flat roof of the restaurant. “The apartment is…‌airy. It has a very

On Claud, though, the look is very cool.) For example, today she was wearing a neon green tank top under a white oversized man’s shirt and fuschia pink stirrup pants. The shirt was rolled at the sleeves and belted with a colorful woven belt. Claud finished the outfit with dangly ceramic-bead earrings she’d made herself in pottery class. She’s super artistic. She paints, sketches, draws, sculpts. You name it! Besides art and cool clothing, Claudia loves junk food. Her parents disapprove of Ho-Ho’s and Twinkies and stuff like that, so she hides them all over her room. You never know when you’re going to pick up a pillow and find a bag of potato chips or something behind it. The other thing she stashes away are her Nancy Drew books. Her parents don’t approve of those, either. They don’t think the mysteries are “intellectual” enough. Claudia couldn’t care less if the books are “intellectual.” One thing Claud is not interested in is school work. Although she can’t spell for anything, she’s definitely not dumb. She just doesn’t like school. And, unfortunately, her grades show it. She’s the complete

WHEN YOU CROW UP IN KANSAS WEARING VERY LARGE SHORTS, thinking not very much of yourself, thinking mainly of your knees, looking mainly at your knees, your face a frisbee that cant fly, your teeth buck, your eyebrows rectangles, your forehead more than half of your face, your shirts shapeless, your shape shapeless, your Kansas shapeless, your lust absent, your legs bowed, your arches flat, your chest flat, your ears your only curves, your ears never pierced, your denim never dazzled, your sneakers white, your socks white, your teeth turquoise with rubber bands, your cheese orange, your milk whole, your bread wonder, your luxury a tuna casserole, your pale a neon pale, your fantasy to race a Mario Kart over the desert and into the final oasis, your earthly oasis a salted pretzel, your solitude total, your urges not even visible to you on the clearest days at the farthest horizons, your blank magnificent, your inertia wild and authentic, your nothing your preference, and then into it somebody walks, a Joan, this sudden hero can really take control. You’re susceptible first to idolatry, then to study, to apprenticeship, and finally to a kind of patient love that makes fun of itself and believes in itself without limit. Imagine being a pudding cup of a person and encountering a confident, elegant, powerful scholar who knows what to do with her shoulders. Imagine encountering you.

memoir A Ride in the Neon Sun. Here’s what she says about traveling: Some people travel with firm ideas for a journey, following in the footsteps of an intrepid ancestor whose exotic exploits were happened upon in a dusty, cobweb-laced attic containing immovable trunks full of sepia-curled daguerreotypes and age-discoloured letters redolent of bygone days. Others travel for anthropological, botanical, archaeological, geological, and other logical reasons. Some are smitten by a specific country brewed from childhood dreams. For others, travel is a challenge, a release, an escape, a shaking off of the shackles, and even if they don’t know where they will end up they usually know where they will begin. The very hardest part of writing this book was that I was unable to stop working on it. I kept reading even after the initial manuscript was turned in, discovering new titles and authors whose works I just couldn’t bear to leave out. I even envisioned myself watching the book being printed and shouting periodically, “Stop the presses!” so that I could add yet another section or title. But of course the day actually came when I knew I had to stop or there would never be an end to the project.And here is the result, in your hands right now. So, before your next trip—either virtual or actual—grab a pen and begin making notes about the titles that sound good to you. And enjoy the journeys. I’d love to hear from you. My email address is nancy@nancypearl .com.

Christian Faith For me, being a Christian is all about true love. The Gospel of John instructs us, “Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” I believe that first we need to love ourselves, even when we are told that we do not deserve love. Then we need to love others, especially those who have not been treated with love. And of course, we need to love Jesus. Love for Jesus can be the foundation for living a good life, a life full of compassion and joy. Loving Jesus is where I believe a Christian life starts, because that love spreads all around, to people, animals, and the world. Animal Rights During my life so far, animals have brought me joy and comfort when I thought that I would never find happiness. My bunny Neon taught me so much about unconditional love. This experience showed me that animals have souls deserving of love just as much as humans, and they can be some of the purest examples of God’s love on Earth. I believe we can all show animals the compassion and love they deserve by choosing products that are fur-free and cruelty-free and by eating a vegan diet. Even people who aren’t prepared to commit to a vegan lifestyle can make thoughtful everyday choices that reduce needless cruelty against animals. Human Rights I have myself been a victim of abuse, so I know how hopeless life can seem to those in dark situations. However, I also know how much of a difference a small ray of light can make. My goal in life now is to shine that ray of light onto as many people in need as possible. As an advocate for human rights, I aim to raise awareness and help others who are suffering. From volunteering for organizations, to simply looking out for a neighbor or friend, we can all make a difference in helping others. Human rights of freedom and safety belong to each of us, and we all have a responsibility to support people who are the most vulnerable.

this thing—his thing—still well and alive inside me. # I dreamed of clawed hooks and sexual abandon. Faces covered in leather masks and eyeliner so dark I could only see black. Here the monsters would come alive, but not the kind you have come to expect. I watched myself as if I were outside my own flesh, free from the imprisonment of bone and conscience. Swollen belly stretch-marked and ugly; my hair tethered and my skin vulnerable. Earthquake beats blared from the DJ booth as terrible looking bodies thrashed, moshed and convulsed. Alone, so alone. Peter definitely gone, no more tears left but the ones that were to come from agony. She was above me again, Dark Princess, raging beauty queen, and I was hers to control. The ultimate succession into human suspension. Like I’d already learned: the body is the final canvas. There is no difference between love and pain. They are the same hopeless obsession. The hooks dived, my legs opened and my back arched. Blood misted my face; pussy juice slicked my inner thigh as my water suddenly broke. # The next night I had to get to the club. 4 A.M. is a time that never lets me down; it knows why I have nightmares, and why I want to suspend myself above them. L train lunacies berated me once again, but this time I noticed the people as if under a different light. They were all rather sad, gaunt and bleary. Their faces were to be pitied and their hands kept shaking, their legs jittering for another quick fix. No matter how much the deranged governments of New York City have cleaned up the boroughs, they can’t rid us of our flavor. The Meatpacking District was scarily alive. Darkness laced with sizzling urban neon. Regret stitched up in the night like a black silk blanket. The High Line Park gloomed above me with trespassers and graffiti maestros. I was envious of their creative freedom, their passion, and their drive. They had to do what they were doing, had to create. There was just no other acceptable life than that. I was inside fast, my memories of Peter fleeting and the ache within me about to be cast off. Stage left, stage right, it didn’t matter. I passed the first check point with ease, as if they already knew the click of my heels, the way my protruding stomach curved through my lace cardigan. She found me, or I found her, and we didn’t exchange any words, any warnings. It was time. Face up, legs open, and this time I’d be flying like Superman, but upside down. There were many hands, many faces, but no

People play games, the whole damned thing's a game. And friends are just a part of it. They lie, they pretend to know you, to get you. They even pretend to love you, sometimes. But they leave, they always do, in the end. You can try all you want. But I promise you, if there's one thing I know for sure about people, it's that they leave.

So, no matter how happy I was, in the back of my cynical mind I kept waiting for the punchline, the catch, the wicked trick of it all. I was used to the things I loved disappointing me.

THE POUNDING RAIN HAD STOPPED as suddenly as it had begun. Sheets of silver green neon clung hungrily to the moist black asphalt like some reptilian skin.

I drove to the bar Theodosha had called from and parked on the street. The bar was a gray, dismal place, ensconced like a broken matchbox under a dying oak tree, its only indication of gaiety a neon beer sign that flickered in one window. She was at a table in back, the glow of the jukebox lighting her face and the deep blackness of her hair. She tipped a collins glass to her mouth, her eyes locked on mine. “Let me take you home,” I said. “No, thanks,” she replied. “Getting swacked?” “Merchie and I had another fight. He says he can’t take my pretensions anymore. I love the word ‘pretensions.’” “That doesn’t mean you have to get drunk,” I said. “You’re right. I can get drunk for any reason I choose,” she replied, and took another hit from the glass. Then she added incongruously, “You once asked Merchie what he was doing in Afghanistan. The answer is he wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in one of those other God-forsaken Stone Age countries to the north, helping build American airbases to protect American oil interests. Merchie says they’re going to make a fortune. All for the red, white, and blue.” “Who is they?” But her eyes were empty now, her concentration and anger temporarily spent. I glanced at the surroundings, the dour men sitting at the bar, a black woman sleeping with her head on a table, a parolee putting moves on a twenty-year-old junkie and mother of two children who was waiting for her connection. These were the people we cycled in and out of the system for decades, without beneficial influence or purpose of any kind that was detectable. “Let’s clear up one thing. Your old man came looking for trouble at the club today. I didn’t start it,” I said. “Go to a meeting, Dave. You’re a drag,” she said. “Give your guff to Merchie,” I said, and got up to leave. “I would. Except he’s probably banging his newest flop in the hay. And the saddest thing is I can’t blame him.” “I think I’m going to ease on out of this. Take care of yourself, kiddo,” I said. “Fuck that ‘kiddo’ stuff. I loved you and you were too stupid to know it.” I walked back outside into a misting rain and the clean smell of the night. I walked past a house where people were fighting behind the shades. I heard doors slamming, the sound of either a car backfiring or gunshots on another street, a siren wailing in the distance. On the corner I saw an expensive automobile pull to the curb and a black kid emerge from the darkness, wearing a skintight bandanna on his head. The driver of the car, a white man, exchanged money for something in the black kid’s hand. Welcome to the twenty-first century, I thought. I opened my truck door, then noticed the sag on the frame and glanced at the right rear tire. It was totally flat, the steel rim buried deep in the folds of collapsed rubber. I dropped the tailgate, pulled the jack and lug wrench out of the toolbox that was arc-welded to the bed of the truck, and fitted the jack under the frame. Just as I had pumped the flat tire clear of the puddle it rested in, I heard footsteps crunch on the gravel behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short, thick billy club whip through the air. Just before it exploded across the side of my head, my eyes seemed to close like a camera lens on a haystack that smelled of damp-rot and unwashed hair and old shoes. I was sure as I slipped into unconsciousness that I was inside an ephemeral dream from which I would soon awake.

Go out the north exit of Nakano Station and into the Sun Mall shopping arcade. After a few steps, you'll see Gindaco, the takoyaki (octopus balls) chain. Turn right into Pretty Good #1 Alley. Walk past the deli that specializes in okowa (steamed sticky rice with tasty bits), a couple of ramen shops, and a fugu restaurant. Go past the pachinko parlor, the grilled eel stand, the camera shops, and the stairs leading to Ginza Renoir coffee shop. If you see the bicycle parking lot in front of Life Supermarket, you're going the right way. During the two-block walk through a typical neighborhood, you've passed more good food than in most midsized Western cities, even if you don't love octopus balls as much as I do. Welcome to Tokyo. Tokyo is unreal. It's the amped-up, neon-spewing cyber-city of literature and film. It's an alley teeming with fragrant grilled chicken shops. It's children playing safely in the street and riding the train across town with no parents in sight. It's a doughnut chain with higher standards of customer service than most high-end restaurants in America. A colossal megacity devoid of crime, grime, and bad food? Sounds more like a utopian novel than an earthly metropolis.

And I think the city fell madly in love with her just then.

It’s suspected by many scholars that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet not to celebrate romance, but rather to satirize it, to show how absolutely nutty it was. He didn’t mean for the play to be a glorification of love. In fact, he meant it to be the opposite: a big flashing neon sign blinking KEEP OUT, with police tape around it saying DO NOT CROSS.

Entertaining Possibilities "Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - The Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland riding bareback on a triceratops through green galaxies while you ride beside me on your favorite mastodon running a finger over those I love and like a highlighter pen turning them neon noting them forever so I can return to them easily when I need them thinking something good can come of "ethnic cleansing" swimming in an ocean deep and wet enough to fill the eternity of love between these two sheets walking into the vowels of a word like open and becoming it locking away Pandora's box putting evil back in its place for good and swallowing the key lighting myself with a single match then watching me melt warm and liquid over your body cooling gently in the shape of you sitting flat in round anticipation I will be page 233 in the book that you have just opened and I will chew on each delicious moment of every turn as you move page by page closer to me stowing away in your pillowcase and sailing your dreams so that when you are sent to walk the plank I can catch you together we can be the mutiny on any bounty letting my best ideas ripen beside yours on the vine then stomping it all juicy between toes yours and mine aging then bottling it all till the sun falls and we uncork our store one by one and drink forever in the twilight planting a memory watering the spot watching it grow tall, tender, familiar, then putting my ear to its blossom and hearing my grandmother's voice tell me again that I can be both the gift and the giver

The Way the Cards Fall " Why did you stay away so long? I’ve buried another husband, since I last saw you holding to the horizon. I hear where you now live it snows year-round. The pear & apple trees have even missed you– dead branches scattered about like war. Come closer, my eyes have grown night-dim. Across the field white boxes of honeybees silent as dirt, silent as your missent postcards. Evening sunlight’s faded my hair, the old stable’s slouched to the ground. I dug a hole for that calico, Cyclops, two years ago. Now milkweed & blackberries are keepers of the cornfield. That’s how the cards fall; & Anna, that beautiful girl you once loved enough to die over & over again for, now lives in New Orleans on both sides of Bourbon Street.

When I looked up to that vacant night sky I was struck by its sheer emptiness. There was no more moon, no more stars, no sign of the beautiful blanket of neon dandruff beyond.

neon green headphones over her ears, her shiny black curls are like organized chaos on her head as she takes a sip out of a Corona.

I wasn't the only one dazzled by how well put together he looked--how comfortable he seemed in his body--leaner, stronger, and anchored in dark denim and a sense of inner calm. People notice that stuff. It's what makes us fall in love.

Say something about real love. Yes, true love—more than parted lips, than parted legs in sorrow’s darkroom of potash & blues. Let the brain stumble from its hidingplace, from its cell block, to the edge of oblivion to come to itself, sharp-tongued as a boar’s grin in summer moss —Yusef Komunyakaa, from “Safe Subjects,”Neon Venacular: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)

Dedicating one’s life to lofty spiritual ideals is every bit as life-defining and purpose-giving as the quest for heaven or power or money or love. Just because there’s a flashing neon sign above the door that says “Free Enlightenment! The Shortest & Easiest Way! The One True Path!” doesn’t mean that what goes on inside is really about enlightenment, or that the people who go in really want it.

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. Some nights you feel like you're on an alien planet or some kind of time machine entering a liquor store with its neon signs and retro touches; besides the new done up stores looking like a polished toilet. I prefer the beaten down, rough and strange liquor store. I’m a regular and the man at the counter always asked me about my latest book, he told me to stay away and write until old age. Anyways got my shit, walked out and the alarm beep went off, barely covering the tax. Took the long way home, to get away from that haunting typewriter. Sat down at some park bench, as I started to open my poison, a memory rushed into me. A empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the Christmas tree. I thought my dad would want another drink, so started to pour my bottle into the dirt and cry as the moon went over the horizon and crossed into the section where my heart was filled up with the hidden moons glow.