Yesterday I Cried Quotes

I was smiling yesterday,I am smiling today and I will smile tomorrow.Simply because life is too short to cry for anything.

Nobody loves me, nobody cares, Nobody picks me peaches and pears. Nobody offers me candy and Cokes, Nobody listens and laughs at me jokes. Nobody helps when I get into a fight, Nobody does all my homework at night. Nobody misses me, Nobody cries, Nobody thinks I'm a wonderful guy. So, if you ask me who's my best friend, in a whiz, I'll stand up and tell you NOBODY is! But yesterday night I got quite a scare I woke up and Nobody just WASN'T there! I called out and reached for Nobody's hand, In the darkness where Nobody usually stands, Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook, But I found SOMEBODY each place that I looked. I seached till I'm tired, and now with the dawn, There's no doubt about it- NOBODY'S GONE!!

You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them

Yesterday, I cried. I came home, went straight to my room, sat on the edge of my bed, kicked off my shoes, unhooked my bra, and I had myself a good cry.

Yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube then held it against my chest til it melted into my aching pores today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar.

I tell her she's beautiful and perfect and she's going to be okay. I tell her she doesn't need to change herself to fit in with shallow girls or to matter to someone. I tell her everything I wish I had ever known. I tell her I love her, and I realize as I say it that I love me, too.

THE FOUR HEAVENLY FOUNTAINS Laugh, I tell you And you will turn back The hands of time. Smile, I tell you And you will reflect The face of the divine. Sing, I tell you And all the angels will sing with you! Cry, I tell you And the reflections found in your pool of tears - Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterday To guide you through the fears of tomorrow.

It's when I'm standing six feet away from you and not being able to find the words to tell you how much I love you and how much I miss you that I want to just scream to the whole room that I'm still in love with you. It's when I'm sitting alone with the phone in my hand dialing your number and hanging up that I would trade a thousand tomorrows for just one yesterday. Then I could just call you to tell you goodnight. It's when I am really sad about something and need someone to talk to that I realize you're the only one who really knew me at all. It's when I cry myself to sleep at night and it hits me how much I would give to hold you at that very moment. It's when I think about you that I realize no one else in the world is meant for me.

I will live this day as if it is my last. …I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday’s misfortunes, Yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad?” I will live this day as if it is my last. This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity. I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday’s sunrise who are no longer with the living today. I am indeed a fortunate man and today’s hours are but a bonus, undeserved. Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better than I, have departed? Is it that they have accomplished their purpose while mine is yet to be achieved? Is this another opportunity for me to become the man I know I can be?

I wailed despondently, but my eyes were bone dry because emo girls didn’t cry (I’d cried yesterday).

I keep thinking, I don’t cry on the court. I don’t cry on the court. But then I think, Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change, I think. Just because you want to. And so, for the first time in decades, I stand in front of a roaring crowd and cry.

you’re the moon and the world is a lonely wolf; it cries at the sight of you for you are glorious and so out of reach

Training?'Clary echoed."But we trained yesterday." "Some of us have to train everyday,Clary."Jace didnt sound angry,but there was a harshness to his tone,and Clary flushed."Ill see you later,"he added without looking at her,and practically flung himself toward the door. As it shut behind him,Clary reached up and angerily yanked the pins out of her hair.It cascaded in tangles down around her shoulders. "Clary,"Luke said gently.He stood up."What are you doing?" "My hair."She yanked the last pin,hard.Her eyes were shining,and simon could tell she was forcibly wiling herself not to cry."I dont want to wear it like this.It looks stupid." 'No,it dosent'Luke said

People seem weak, but they’re strong. They seem strong, but they’re weak. No matter how much you cry, you still have to sleep. And you even get hungry. You suddenly realize you’re doing the same things you did yesterday. You say hi to your friends and smile just like you did yesterday. Life goes on as if nothing ever happened… I want to go somewhere… Anywhere… Somewhere where I can forget everything. …where I’ll forget everything …and be reborn. Mars Volume 18

It's a sweet setup, I'll admit. For all that the maids STILL show up each day with jumbo crucifixes, jumpy movements, and red eyes from crying over the short straw that drew them vampire duty.' Yesterday, she'd just stopped herself from raising her clenched hands above her head and chasing one of them around the room groaning, 'I vant to suck your blood.

Oh, I envy you!" he cried. "You are still nourished by yesterday's alms, but yesterday's happiness no longer nourishes me.

Been a long road to follow Been there and one tomorrow Without saying goodbye to yesterday Are the memories I hold Still valid? Or have the tears deluded them.. Something somewhere out there Is calling... Zero Gravity, What's it like? Is somebody there Beyond these heavy aching feet? Am I going home? Will I hear someone? Singin solace to the silent moon Still the road keeps on telling me To go on... Something is pulling me, I feel the gravity Of it all.

Home at last. Why was I not feeling relief? I turn in m bed thinking of the last time that I had laid my head on that pillow. Sadness took over me almost instantly. A pillow soaked in tears, the feeling of someone tearing a part of my chest out, it replayed in my head as if it had happened yesterday. I coculdn't believe that that girl was me. I was so much stronger than that, how had I allowed myself to become so vulnerable? I never thought that I would be the girl who'd get her heart broken. I never thought that he'd be the one to break it. But I was, and I know he did. I know, because, no one will ever know how much I cried that night.

We talked on the phone for a long time yesterday,” she said. “He’s sorry, Joe. He’s really sorry. He broke down and cried like a baby.” “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Why don’t you at least

…oh, you faithless, unfortunate man!...Because of you I spent the whole night yesterday shivering and naked. I lost my nature and replaced it with a new one, I spent several months sitting in a dark closet thinking about one thing, about the storm over Yershalaim, I cried my eyes out, and now, when happiness has befallen us, you drive me away! Well, then I’ll go, I’ll go, but you should know that you are a cruel man! They’ve devastated your soul!

You know how when you ask someone what they'd do if the sun was headed for Earth and they had twenty-four hours left to live? And everyone always says they'd be with family, eat their favorite food, go someplace they've always wanted to go? Nobody ever says they'd spend the last day curled up in bed crying- because they wouldn't. That's not what anyone wants to do with their final hours. I mean, yeah, you'd cry. And you'd be scared because you're gonna die. And you'd find yourself looking at the sky throughout the day, knowing what's coming because that's just human nature. But for the most part, you'd just enjoy the time you had left. Especially because there's nothing you can do about it. There's no escape, nowhere to hide. So why bother? Obsessing over the end is pointless. If you spend your life dwelling on the worst possible thing, when it finally happens, you've lived it twice. I don't want to live the worst things twice. I try really hard not to think about the bad stuff. But every once in a while I'm human and I look up. Yesterday was just one of those days that I looked at the sun.

Today While the blossoms still cling to the vine I'll taste your strawberries I'll drink your sweet wine A million tomorrows shall all pass away Here I forget all the joy that is mine. Today I'll be a dandy and I'll be a rover You know who I am by the songs that I sing I'll feast at your table I'll sleep in your clover Who cares what tomorrow shall bring I can't be contented with yesterday's glory I can't live on promises winter to spring Today is my moment and now is my story I'll laugh and I'll cry and I'll sing

I remember first learning about death quite vividly. I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. My grandfather had died, and my mother was trying to explain it to me. 'Sometimes, when someone gets ill, and they're very very old, they don't get better again. They just get iller and iller and then... then their body stops working.' 'I don't understand.' 'What's in them just goes away, and doesn't come back.' 'Grandpa isn't coming back?' 'No,' she said. 'Not ever again.' 'Grandpa said he was going away and not ever coming back after he held Grandma's head in that cotton-dump outside of town and kicked Skeeter seventy-three times.' 'Grandpa was very drunk. That's not the same as being dead. Grandpa's dead, son. He's not there anymore.' And I remember saying, 'Hold everything right fucking THERE. 'You went to all the trouble of conceiving me, and giving birth to me, and raising me and feeding me and clothing me and all-- and, YEAH, whipping me from time to time, and making me live in a house that's freezing fucking cold all the goddamn time-- and you make me cry and things hurt so much and disappointments crush my heart every day and I can't do half the things I want to do and sometimes I just want to scream-- and what I've got to look forward to is my body breaking and something flipping off the switch in my head-- I go through all this-- and then there's death? 'What is the motherfucking deal here?

One that is ever kind said yesterday: 'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.' Heart cries, 'No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain. Time can but make her beauty over again: Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs, Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.' Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head, You'd know the folly of being comforted!

Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.

Up and down' is Irish for anything at all--from crying into the dishes to full-blown psychosis. Though, now that I think about, a psychotic is more usually 'not quite herself'.

Yesterday is gone from my control, so I don't worry about it. I can make decisions that will feed my soul and give me the life that I can feel good about.

Cry no tears for us, my friend.” I pry at her fingers, panicking to be released in fear that she may drag me into death with her. She croaks again, “Lend no aches to the dreams of yesterday.” From the corpse of Warren, his greyish gums smack from whatever goo has settled in his mouth, “Allow the tide sweep free the bay.” Then together they sing in zombie choir, “And home the ships sailing send.

Matsu gathered up what little was left of the food and wrapped it back up in the furoshiki. 'I followed you and the others down to the beach yesterday morning. I wondered if you might try to find your way to peace as she did.' 'I couldn't,' I began to cry, turning away in shame. Then Matsu leaned over close to my ear. He smelled of sweat and the earth as he whispered, 'It takes greater courage to live.

It is because of this sea between us. The earth has never, up to now, separated us. But, ever since yesterday, there has been something in this nonetheless real, perfectly Atlantic, salty, slightly rough sea that has cast a spell on me. And every time I think about Promethea, I see her crossing this great expanse by boat and soon, alas, a storm comes up, my memory clouds over, in a flash there are shipwrecks, I cannot even cry out, my mouth is full of saltwater sobs. I am flooded with vague, deceptive recollections, I am drowning in my imagination in tears borrowed from the most familiar tragedies, I wish I had never read certain books whose poison is working in me. Has this Friday, perhaps, thrown a spell on me? But spells only work if you catch them. I have caught the Tragic illness. If only Promethea would make me some tea I know I would find some relief. But that is exactly what is impossible. And so, today, I am sinning. I am sinking beneath reality. I am weighted down with literature. That is my fate. Yet I had the presence of mind to start this parenthesis, the only healthy moment in these damp, feverish hours. All this to try to come back to the surface of our book... Phone me quickly, Promethea, get me out of this parenthesis fast!)

When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through heaven’s gates I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne, He said, “This is eternity, And all I’ve promised you. Today your life on earth is past But here it starts anew. I promise no tomorrow, But today will always last, And since each day’s the same way, There’s no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Though there were times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do. But you have been forgiven And now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand And share my life with me?” So when tomorrow starts without me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart.

Oh, Aslan,” said King Peter, dropping on one knee and raising the Lion’s heavy paw to his face, “I’m so glad. And I’m so sorry. I’ve been leading them wrong ever since we started and especially yesterday morning.” “My dear son,” said Aslan. Then he turned and welcomed Edmund. “Well done,” were his words. Then, after an awful pause, the deep voice said, “Susan.” Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. “You have listened to fears, child,” said Aslan. “Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?” “A little, Aslan,” said Susan.

what they did yesterday afternoon they set my aunts house on fire i cried the way women on tv do folding at the middle like a five pound note. i called the boy who used to love me trying to 'okay' my voice i said hello he said warsan, what's wrong, what's happened? i've been praying, and these are what my prayers look like; dear god i come from two countries one is thirsty the other is on fire both need water. later that night i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt? it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.

Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door." Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills. (last lines)

Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. "You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past." "You call yesterday the past?" "What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Oh, no, no, no," I repeated, shaking my head. The room started to spin, and I couldn't hold my head up any longer. I collapsed back against the pillow. That's when I saw his silhouette at the door. "I'm not supposed to be here," I cried. "I'm not supposed to be in yesterday.

What’s the matter with me I don’t have much to say... People disagreeing on all just about everything, yeah Makes you stop and all wonder why Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street Who just couldn’t help but cry Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow And as long as it does I’ll just sit here And watch the river flow People disagreeing everywhere you look Makes you wanna stop and read a book Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street That was really shook But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow And as long as it does I’ll just sit here And watch the river flow.

Living Again Running, running far away Escaping dreams of yesterday. Faster, faster there I go Forgetting things you'll never know. Dying, dying deep inside Find a place for me to hide. Catching, catching up with me No more running from reality. Stopping, stopping let me cry Finding a way to say goodbye.

The heart and the spirit also shed. They shed the emotions and experiences that we no longer need. They shed the things that stunt our growth. This, too, is an invisible process. Yet because of the energy involved, the emotional energy, we often feel the emotional and spiritual shedding. It feels as if we are dying. We are. Just like the flowers and the trees, we are dying to an old identity. This shedding, or death, is not the end of us. It is the beginning.

I am tired of the lifeless tears. I’ve cried so many bitter tears of yesterday because tomorrow has never come. I am immune to salty tears as I drown in an ocean of tears over and over again. When will I be able to come up for air? Sadly, life dunks my head underwater again as I cry while tears are buried beneath my sheets at night.

You must not be angry with me for having been so sad yesterday; I was very happy, very content, but in my very best moments I am always for some reason sad. As for my crying, that means nothing. I don’t know myself why I am always crying. I feel ill and irritable; my sensations are due to illness. The pale cloudless sky, the sunset, the evening stillness – all that – I don’t know – but I was somehow in the mood yesterday to take a dreary and miserable view of everything, so that my heart was to fall any did the relief of tears. But why am I writing all this to you? It is hard to make all that clear to one’s own heart and still harder to convey it to another. But you, perhaps, will understand me. Sadness and laughter both at once! How kind you are really. You looked into my eyes yesterday as though to read in them what I was feeling and were delighted with my rapture.

After a few minutes of running aimlessly through empty halls, I find myself outdoors by the pool. It’s still and quiet and the water is sparkling under the moon. There is no one here so I collapse into a heap on a lounge. And I cry. I cry in heaves and sobs and wrack my ribs and finally my freaking head hurts again from all the sobbing. And I don’t even feel pathetic for crying so much because anyone in their right mind would cry in my situation. I’m in a foreign country, all alone, in love with the Prime Minister’s son and he’s too afraid to break out of his cage and love me back. Oh, and I practically got stomped to death by a gigantic horse yesterday. I deserve some slack. Finally, I’m all cried out.

Stop, Basil! I won’t hear it!” cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. “You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past.” “You call yesterday the past?

This was something I began appreciating about life abroad: how much more malleable we become to chance encounters.

To-morrow,' cried they, one and all,   While no one spoke of yesterday. 20 Their life stood full at blessed noon;   I, only I, had passed away: 'To-morrow and to-day,' they cried; I was of yesterday.

Yesterday, she shed tears, keeping her head on my shoulders. And I think she's not going to be fine because I know she won't. Because a couple of years back, I wasn't. And when you know that you've fallen hard on a cold ground and are still lying there, what do you tell others who are taking the fall? You close your eyes. You accept to lie there a little longer. But I lie on my bed now, and it's a little too warm today.

we fear solitude. We mistake it for loneliness and attempt to fill the emptiness, the silence with activity and noise and people. But the solitude of Snapper Five provided Rhonda with the silence she needed to hear herself think. She was able to become still and allow her feelings about herself to surface. Through the silence, she became aware of her fears as well as her strengths. She learned that she possessed faith, and she learned to trust the power of that faith. The solitude of Snapper Five also brought Rhonda much-needed clarity. She became clear about what it was she specifically wanted in her life and what she did not want. Rhonda

I was running, as fast as I could, carrying you, Carnation, shaking and scared ... She was there, waiting for me. Standing surrounded by a meadow of lavender, her arms opened wide for me to run into and cry and cry ...

Yesterday I stood at the temple door interrogating the passersby about the mystery and merit of Love. And before me passed an old man with an emaciated and melancholy face, who sighed and said: "Love is a natural weakness bestowed upon us by the first man." But a virile youth retorted: "Love joins our present with the past and the future." Then a woman with a tragic face sighed and said: "Love is a deadly poison injected by black vipers, that crawl from the caves of hell. The poison seems fresh as dew and the thirsty soul eagerly drinks it; but after the first intoxication the drinker sickens and dies a slow death." Then a beautiful, rosy-cheeked damsel smilingly said: "Love is a wine served by the brides of Dawn which strengthens strong souls and enables them to ascend to the stars." After her a black-robed, bearded man, frowning, said: "Love is a divine knowledge that enables men to see as much as the gods." Then said a blind man, feeling his way with a cane: "Love is a blinding mist that keeps the soul from discerning the secret of existence, so that the heart sees only trembling phantoms of desire among the hills, and hears only echoes of cries from voiceless valleys." And a feeble ancient, dragging his feet like two rags, said, in quavering tones: "Love is the rest of the body in the quiet of the grave, the tranquility of the soul in the depth of Eternity." And a five-year-old child, after him, said laughing: "Love is my father and mother, and no one knows Love save my father and mother." And so, all who passed spoke of Love as the image of their hopes and frustrations, leaving it a mystery as before.

Laugh, I tell you And you will turn back The hands of time. Smile, I tell you And you will reflect The face of the divine. Sing, I tell you And all the angels will sing with you! Cry, I tell you And the reflections found in your pool of tears - Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterday To guide you through the fears of tomorrow. THE FOUR HEAVENLY FOUNTAINS by Suzy Kassem Taken from University of Toledo Collection: The Spring For Wisdom Copyright 1994

I think of the beauty in the obvious, the way it forces us to admit how it exists, the way it insists on being pointed out like a bloody nose, or how every time it snows there is always someone around to say, “It’s snowing.” But the obvious isn’t showing off, it’s only reminding us that time passes, and that somewhere along the way we grow up. Not perfect, but up and out. It teaches us something about time, that we are all ticking and tocking, walking the fine line between days and weeks, as if each second speaks of years, and each month has years listening to forever but never hearing anything beyond centuries swallowed up by millenniums, as if time was calculating the sums needed to fill the empty belly of eternity. We so seldom understand each other. But if understanding is neither here nor there, and the universe is infinite, then understand that no matter where we go, we will always be smack dab in the middle of nowhere. All we can do is share some piece of ourselves and hope that it’s remembered. Hope that we meant something to someone. My chest is a cannon that I have used to take aim and shoot my heart upon this world. I love the way an uncurled fist becomes a hand again, because when I take notes, I need it to underline the important parts of you: happy, sad, lovely. Battle cry ballistic like a disaster or a lipstick earthquaking and taking out the monuments of all my hollow yesterdays. We’ll always have the obvious. It reminds us who, and where we are, it lives like a heart shape, like a jar that we hand to others and ask, “Can you open this for me?” We always get the same answer: “Not without breaking it.” More often than sometimes, I say go for it.

Who" The month of flowering’s finished. The fruit’s in, Eaten or rotten. I am all mouth. October’s the month for storage. The shed’s fusty as a mummy’s stomach: Old tools, handles and rusty tusks. I am at home here among the dead heads. Let me sit in a flowerpot, The spiders won’t notice. My heart is a stopped geranium. If only the wind would leave my lungs alone. Dogsbody noses the petals. They bloom upside down. They rattle like hydrangea bushes. Mouldering heads console me, Nailed to the rafters yesterday: Inmates who don’t hibernate. Cabbageheads: wormy purple, silver-glaze, A dressing of mule ears, mothy pelts, but green-hearted, Their veins white as porkfat. O the beauty of usage! The orange pumpkins have no eyes. These halls are full of women who think they are birds. This is a dull school. I am a root, a stone, an owl pellet, Without dreams of any sort. Mother, you are the one mouth I would be a tongue to. Mother of otherness Eat me. Wastebasket gaper, shadow of doorways. I said: I must remember this, being small. There were such enormous flowers, Purple and red mouths, utterly lovely. The hoops of blackberry stems made me cry. Now they light me up like an electric bulb. For weeks I can remember nothing at all.

Many of the first 2,000 or so nights of my life ended in civil disobedience: crying, begging, bargaining, until—on night 2,193, the night I turned six years old—I discovered direct action. The authorities weren’t interested in calls for reform, and I wasn’t born yesterday.

Upon my word,” cried my adversary, annoyed, “if you did not want to fight, why did not you let me alone?” “Yesterday I was a fool, to-day I know better,” I answered him gayly. “As to yesterday, I believe you, but as for to-day, it is difficult to agree with your opinion,”said he.

I decided to start from scratch, with a simple prayer: “Hi!” I said. Someone or something hears. I don’t know much about its nature, only that when I cry out, it hears me and moves closer to me, and I don’t feel so alone. I feel better. And I felt better that morning, starting over. No shame in that—Saint Augustine said that you have to start your relationship with God all over from the beginning, every day. Yesterday’s faith does not wait for you like a dog with your slippers and the morning paper in its mouth. You seek it, and in seeking it, you find it.

First snow fell yesterday. It came easy and unannounced, like a whisper, but once it started, it continued into the night. When I looked out this morning, everything was still, white, and gleaming. I wondered if you were somewhere safe and warm. I wondered if you were thinking about me.

Love, if I managed to write it down, would approach a critical point: there where lies the risk of exhuming buried cries, those of yesterday and as well as those of a hundred years ago. But my sole ambition in writing is constantly to travel to fresh pastures and replenish my water skins with an inexhaustible silence.

Come, children, pull yourselves together! I dare say no one has ever seen the ghost.” “Yes, yes, we saw him—we saw him just now!” cried the girls. “He had his death’s head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared to Joseph Buquet!” “And Gabriel saw him too!” said Jammes. “Only yesterday! Yesterday afternoon—in broad day-light——

Laugh, I tell you And you will turn back The hands of time. Smile, I tell you And you will reflect The face of the divine. Sing, I tell you And all the angels will sing with you! Cry, I tell you And the reflections found in your pool of tears - Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterday To guide you through the fears of tomorrow.

Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change, I think. Just because you want to. And so, for the first time in decades, I stand in front of a roaring crowd and cry.

I keep thinking, I don’t cry on the court. I don’t cry on the court. But then I think, Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change, I think. Just because you want to.

The boys organized air-soft gun wars, so eight sweaty, stinky boys are running through my house wielding semiautomatic pellet guns dressed in sweatshirts though it was 97 degrees yesterday. My rule on this boy business: “Don’t cry if you get pinged, and if one stray pellet hits me, I will run over your guns with my car.” This is life with sons, people.

But then I think, Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change, I think. Just because you want to. And so, for the first time in decades, I stand in front of a roaring crowd and cry.

Upon my word,” cried my adversary, annoyed, “if you did not want to fight, why did not you let me alone?” “Yesterday I was a fool, to-day I know better,” I answered him gayly. “As to yesterday, I believe you, but as for to-day, it is difficult to agree with your opinion,”said he. “Bravo,” I cried, clapping my hands. “I agree with you there too. I have deserved it!

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is. You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart eleven, not until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is. Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one

I spent an hour yesterday watching the ladies bathe. What a sight! What a hideous sight! The two sexes used to bathe together here. But now they are kept separate by means of signposts, preventive nets, and a uniformed inspector – nothing more depressingly grotesque can be imagined. However, yesterday, from the place where I was standing in the sun, with my spectacles on my nose, I could contemplate the bathing beauties at my leisure. The human race must indeed have become absolutely moronic to have lost its sense of elegance to this degree. Nothing is more pitiful than these bags in which women encase their bodies, and these oilcloth caps! What faces! What figures! And what feet! Red, scrawny, covered with corns and bunions, deformed by shoes, long as shuttles or wide as washerwomen’s paddles. And in the midst of everything, scrofulous brats screaming and crying. Further off, grandmas knitting and respectable old gentlemen with gold-rimmed spectacles reading newspapers, looking up from time to time between lines to savor the vastness of the horizon with an air of approval. The whole thing made me long all afternoon to escape from Europe and go live in the Sandwich Islands or the forests of Brazil. There, at least, the beaches are not polluted by such ugly feet, by such foul-looking specimens of humanity.

I'm nobody. I'm just a tiny little character in the big book of your life. And you're right. People do die. All of them. Bar none. So what does it even mean? I call someone crazy because not everybody is crazy. I call someone brilliant because not everyone is brilliant. But everybody dies. Squirrels die. Tress die. Skin cells die and your inner organs die and the person you were yesterday's dead too. So what does it mean to die? Not much.

Her. Her. Her. Future breezes implore me to stay. But I'm no future. I'm no past. Only ever contemporary of this path. I'll sacrifice everything for all her seasons give from losing. She, I sigh from The Mountain top. By her now. My only role. And for that freedom, spread my polar chill, reaching even the warmest times, a warning upon the back of every life that would by harming Hailey's play, ever wayward around this vegetative rush of orbit & twine, awaken among these cascading cliffs of bellicose ice me. And my Vengeance. At once. The Justice of my awful loss set free upon this crowded land. An old terror violent for the glee of ends. But to those who would tend her, harrowed by such Beauty & Fleeting Presence to do more, my cool cries will kiss their gentle foreheads and my tears will kiss their tender cheeks, and then if the Love of their Kindness, which only Kindness ever finds, spills my ear, for a while I might slip down and play amidst her canopies of gold. Solitude. Hailey's bare feet. And all her patience now assumes. Garland of Spring's Sacred Bloom. By you, ever sixteen, this World's preserved. By you, this World has everything left to lose. And I, your sentry of ice, shall allways protect what your Joy so dangerously resumes. I'll destroy no World so long it keeps turning with flurry & gush, petals & stems bending and lush, and allways our hushes returning anew. Everyone betrays the Dream but who cares for it? O Hailey no, I could never walk away from you. - Haloes! Haleskarth! Contraband! I can walk away from anything. Everyone loves the Dream but I kill it. Bald Eagles soar over me: —Reveille Rebel! I jump free this weel. On fire. Blaze a breeze. I'll devastate the World. \\ Samsara! Samarra! Grand! I can walk away from anything. Everyone loves the Dream but I kill it. Atlas Mountain Cedars gush over me: —Up Boogaloo! I leap free this spring. On fire. How my hair curls. I'll destroy the World. - Him. Him. Him. Future winds imploring me to stay. But I'm no tomorrow. I'm no yesterday. Only ever contemporary of this way. I will sacrifice everything for all his seasons miss of soaring. He, I sigh from The Mountain top. By him now. My only role. And for that freedom, spread my polar chill, reaching even the warmest climes, a warning upon the back of every life that would by harming Sam's play, ever wayward around this animal streak of orbit & wind, awaken among these cataracts of belligerent ice me. And my Justice. At once. The Vengeance of my awful loss set free upon this crowded land. An old terror violent for the delirium of ends. But to those who would protect him, frightened by such Beauty & Savage Presence to do more, my cool cries will kiss their tender foreheads and my tears will kiss their gentle cheeks, and then if the Kindness of their Love, which only Loving ever binds, spills my ear, for a while I might slip down and play among his foals so green. My barrenness. Sam's solitude. And all his patience now presumes. Luster of Spring's Sacred Brood. By you, ever sixteen, this World's reserved. By you, this World has everything left to lose. And I, your sentry of ice, shall allways protect what your Joy so terrifyingly elects. I'll destroy no World so long it keeps turning with scurry & blush, fledgling & charms beading with dews, and allways our rush returning renewed. Everyone betrays the Dream but who cares for it? O Sam no, I could never walk away from you.

show me your face i crave flowers and gardens open your lips i crave the taste of honey come out from behind the clouds i desire a sunny face your voice echoed saying "leave me alone" i wish to hear your voice again saying "leave me alone" i swear this city without you is a prison i am dying to get out to roam in deserts and mountains i am tired of flimsy friends and submissive companions i die to walk with the brave am blue hearing nagging voices and meek cries i desire loud music drunken parties and wild dance one hand holding a cup of wine one hand caressing your hair then dancing in orbital circle that is what i yearn for i can sing better than any nightingale but because of this city's freaks i seal my lips while my heart weeps yesterday the wisest man holding a lit lantern in daylight was searching around town saying i am tired of all these beasts and brutes i seek a true human we have all looked for one but no one could be found they said yes he replied but my search is for the one who cannot be found

Christy dug her hand deeper into her shoulder bag. Scanning the papers she finally located there, she found no phone numbers or addresses listed. All the plans had been made in such haste. All she knew was that someone was supposed to meet her here. She was here, and he or she wasn't. Never in her life had she felt so completely alone. Stranded with nowhere to turn. A prayer came quickly to her lips. "Father God, I'm at Your mercy here. I know You're in control. Please show me what to do." Suddenly she heard a voice calling to her. "Kilikina!" Christy's heart stopped. Only one person in the entire world had ever called her by her Hawaiian name. She spun around. "Kilikina," called out the tall, blond surfer who was running toward her. Christy looked up into the screaming silver-blue eyes that could only belong to one person. "Todd?" she whispered, convinced she was hallucinating. "Kilikina," Todd wrapped his arms around her so tightly that for an instant she couldn't breathe. He held her a long time. Crying. She could feel his warm tears on her neck. She knew this had to be real. But how could it be? "Todd?" she whispered again. "How? I mean, what...? I don't..." Todd pulled away, and for the first time she noticed the big gouquet of white carnations in his hand. They were now a bit squashed. "For you," he said, his eyes clearing and his rich voice sounding calm and steady. Then, seeing her shocked expression, he asked, "You really didn't know I was here, did you?" Christy shook her head, unable to find any words. "Didn't Dr. Benson tell you?" She shook her head again. "You mean you came all this way by yourself, and you didn't even know I was here?" Now it was Todd's turn to look surprised. "No, I thought you were in Papua New Guinea or something. I had no idea you were here!" "They needed me here more," Todd said with a chin-up gesture toward the beach. "It's the perfect place for me." With a wide smile spreading above his square jaw, he said, "Ever since I received the fax yesterday saying they were sending you, I've been out of my mind with joy! Kilikina, you can't imagine how I've been feeling." Christy had never heard him talk like this before. Todd took the bouquet from her and placed it on top of her luggage. Then, grasping both her quivering hands in his and looking into her eyes, he said, "Don't you see? There is no way you or I could ever have planned this. It's from God." The shocked tears finally caught up to Christy's eyes, and she blinked to keep Todd in focus. "It is," she agreed. "God brought us back together, didn't He?" A giggle of joy and delight danced from her lips. "Do you remember what I said when you gave me back your bracelet?" Todd asked. "I said that if God ever brought us back together, I would put that bracelet back on your wrist, and that time, it would stay on forever." Christy nodded. She had replayed the memory of that day a thousand times in her mind. It had seemed impossible that God would bring them back together. Christy's heart pounded as she realized that God, in His weird way, had done the impossible. Todd reached into his pocket and pulled out the "Forever" ID bracelet. He tenderly held Christy's wrist, and circling it with the gold chain, he secured the clasp. Above their heads a fresh ocean wind blew through the palm trees. It almost sounded as if the trees were applauding. Christy looked up from her wrist and met Todd's expectant gaze. Deep inside, Christy knew that with the blessing of the Lord, Todd had just stepped into the garden of her heart. In the holiness of that moment, his silver-blue eyes embraced hers and he whispered, "I promise, Kilikina. Forever." "Forever," Christy whispered back. Then gently, reverently, Todd and Christy sealed their forever promise with a kiss.

Why not?” I asked, letting my tears spill over. It was easy to cry. All I had to do was look at Alex’s limp body, and the tears came effortlessly. “You were happy enough to do it to me.” There was a beat. Then John said cautiously, “What do you mean?” “The consequences, John?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Persephone wasn’t doomed to stay in the Underworld because she ate a pomegranate. She was doomed to stay there because she did with Hades what we did last night. That’s what the pomegranate symbolizes, right?” John stared, speechless. But I could tell I was right by the color that slowly started to suffuse his cheeks…and the fact that he didn’t try to contradict me. And of course the fact that the whole thing was spelled out right in front of me by the statue Hope was sitting on. I didn’t get why the Rectors were so obsessed by the myth of Persephone that they’d put a statue of it in their mausoleum, but it was clear enough they were involved in an underworld of one kind or another. “Don’t worry,” I said, lowering my voice because I didn’t want Frank to overhear. “I don’t blame you. You asked me if I was sure, despite the consequences. I said I was. But I thought by consequences you meant a baby, and I already knew that could never happen. I guess Mr. Smith must have told you last night that he found out the pomegranate symbolized something completely different than babies or death-“ “Pierce.” John grasped my hand. His fingers were like ice, but his voice and his gaze had an urgency that was anything but cold. “That isn’t why I did it. I love you. I’ve always loved you, because you’re good…you’re so good, you make me want to be good, too. But that’s the problem, Pierce. I’m not good. And I’ve always been afraid that when you find out the truth about me, you’d run away again-“ I sucked in my breath to tell him for the millionth time that this wasn’t true, but he cut me off, not allowing me to speak until he’d had his say. “Then you almost died yesterday,” he went on, “and it was my fault. I wanted to show you how much I loved you, and things…things went further than I expected. But you didn’t stop me”-his silver eyes blazed, as if daring me to deny what he was saying-“even though I told you we could slow down if you wanted to.” “I know,” I said softly, dropping my gaze to look down at our joined fingers. We’d each kept a hand on Alex. “I know you did.” “I don’t want to lose you again,” he said fiercely. “I lost you once and I couldn’t bear it. I won’t go through that again. I…I know I did the wrong thing. But it didn’t feel wrong at the time.” I raised my gaze to his. “You’re right about that, at least,” I said. “So am I forgiven?” he asked. I hesitated, confused by the myriad of emotions I was feeling. John had known. He’d known the whole time we had been together the night before that he was forever sealing my destiny to his. Of course, he’d thought I’d known, too. He’d asked if I was sure it was what I wanted, despite the consequences. I might have misunderstood what those consequences were, but I’d been very adamant in my response. I’d said yes. And I’d meant it. “Excuse me,” called Frank’s voice from the opposite wall of vaults. “But you might want to take a look at the boy.” John and I both glanced down. Beneath the hands we’d left on Alex, he’d come back to life.

I understood that to live is to be free ... that to have friends is necessary ... that to fight is to stay alive ... that to be happy you just need to want ... I learned that time heals ... that the grudge disappears ... that disappointment does not kill ... that today is a reflection of yesterday. I understood that we can cry without shedding tears ... that true friends remain ... what a pain strengthens ... what to win magnifies... I learned that dreaming is not fantasize ... that to smile you have to make someone smile ... that beauty is not what we see, but what we feel ... that the value is in the strength of achievement ... I realized that words have power ... that to accomplish is better than to talk ... that the look does not lie ... that living is learning from mistakes ... I learned that everything depends on the will ... that the best is to be ourselves ... that the SECRET of life is LIVE! " "And one of the things I learned is that one should live though. Although, one must eat. Although, we must love. Although, it must die. Even it is often the very although that pushes us forward. It was the despite of that gave me an anguish that unsatisfied was breeder my own life.

I’ve lived near here at several different stretches across time, but once, when I lived here a few hundred years ago, I had a camel I named Oded. He was just about the laziest creature ever to talk the Earth. He would pass out when I was in the middle of feeding him, and making it to the closest Bedouin camp for tea was a minor miracle. But when I first met you in that lifetime-“ “Oded broke into a run,” Luce said without thinking. “I screamed because I thought he was going to trample me. You said you’d never seen him move like that.” “Yeah, well,” Daniel said. “He liked you.” They paused and looked at each other, and Daniel started laughing when Luce’s jaw dropped. “I did it!” she cried out. “It was just there, in my memory, a part of me. Like it happened yesterday. I came to me without thinking!” It was miraculous. All those memories from all those lives that had been lost each time Lucinda died in Daniel’s arms were somehow finding their way back to her, the way Luce always found her way back to Daniel. No. She was finding her way to them. It was like a gate had been left open after Luce’s quest through the Announcers. Those memories stayed with her, from Moscow to Helston to Egypt. Now more were becoming available. She had a sudden, keen sense of who she was-and she wasn’t just Luce Price from Thunderbolt, Georgia. She was every girl she’d ever been, an amalgamation of experience, mistakes, achievements, and, above all, love. She was Lucinda. “Quick,” she said to Daniel. “Can we do another?” “Okay, how about another desert life? You were living in the Sahara when I found you. Tall and gangly and the fastest runner in your village. I was passing through one day, on my way to visit Roland, and I stopped for the night at the closest spring. All the other men were very distrustful of me, but-“ “But my father paid you three zebra skins for the knife you had in your satchel!” Daniel grinned. “He drove a hard bargain.” “This is amazing,” she said, nearly breathless. How much more did she have in her that she didn’t know about? How far back could she go? She pivoted to face him, drawing her knees against her chest and leaning in so that their foreheads were almost touching. “Can you remember everything about our pasts?” Daniel’s eyes softened at the corners. “Sometimes the order of things gets mixed up in my head. I’ll admit, I don’t remember long stretches of time I’ve spent alone, but I can remember every first glimpse of your face, every kiss of your lips, every memory I’ve ever made with you.

Vulnerability: January 8 Some of us may have made a decision that no one was ever going to hurt us again. We may automatically go on “feelings freeze mode” when faced with emotional pain. Or, we may terminate a relationship the first time we feel hurt. Hurt feelings are a part of life, relationships, and recovery. It is understandable that we don’t want to feel any more pain. Many of us have had more than our share. In fact, at some time in our life, we may have been overwhelmed, crushed, or stopped in our tracks by the amount of pain we felt. We may not have had the resources to cope with our pain or take care of ourselves. That was yesterday. Today, we don’t have to be so frightened of pain. It does not have to overwhelm us. We are becoming strong enough to deal with hurt feelings. And we don’t have to become martyrs, claiming that hurt feelings and suffering are all there is to life. We need only allow ourselves to feel vulnerable enough to feel hurt, when that’s appropriate, and take responsibility for our feelings, behaviors, and what we need to do to take care of ourselves. We don’t have to analyze or justify our feelings. We need to feel them, and try not to let them control our behavior. Maybe our pain is showing us we need to set a boundary; maybe it’s showing us we’re going in a wrong direction; maybe it’s triggering a deep healing process. It’s okay to feel hurt; it’s okay to cry; it’s okay to heal; it’s okay to move on to the next feeling, when it’s time. Our willingness and capacity to feel hurt will eventually be matched by our willingness and capacity to feel joy. Being in recovery does not mean immunity from pain; it means learning to take loving care of ourselves when we are in pain. Today, I will not strike out at those who cause me pain. I will feel my emotions and take responsibility for them. I will accept hurt feelings as part of being in relationships. I am willing to surrender to the pain as well as the joy in life.

I don’t resort to foul language as a rule, but that first session with the counselor yesterday was bloody ridiculous. I started crying in front of Dr. Temple at the end of her stupid empty-chair exercise, and then she actually said, with faux gentleness, that our session had to draw to a close and that she’d see me next week at the same time. She basically hustled me out onto the street, and I found myself standing on the pavement, shoppers bustling past me, tears streaming down my face. How could she do it? How could one human being see another so obviously in pain, a pain she had deliberately drawn out and worried away at, and then push her out into the street and leave her to cope with it alone?

A young person for Monsieur Jagiello,’ said the guard, with a grin. He stood away from the door, and there was the young person, holding a cloth-covered basket, blushing and hanging her pretty head. The others walked away to the window and talked in what they meant to be a detached, natural way; but few could help stealing glances at the maiden, and none could fail to hear Jagiello cry, ‘But my dear, dear Mademoiselle, I asked for black pudding and apples, no more. And here is foie gras, a gratin of lobster, a partridge, three kinds of cheese, two kinds of wine, a strawberry tart . . . ’ ‘I made it myself,’ said the young person. ‘I am sure it is wonderfully good: but it is much more than I can ever afford.’ ‘You must keep up your strength. You can pay for it later – or in some other way – or however you like.’ ‘But how?’ asked Jagiello, in honest amazement. ‘By a note of hand, do you mean?’ ‘Pray step into the passage,’ said she, pinker still. ‘There you are again,’ said Jack, drawing Stephen into another room. ‘Yesterday it was a thundering great patty, with truffles; and tomorrow we shall see a wedding-cake for his pudding, no doubt. What they see in him I cannot conceive. Why Jagiello, and the others ignored? Here is Fenton, for example, a fine upstanding fellow with side-whiskers that are the pride of the service – with a beard as thick as a coconut – has to shave twice a day – as strong as a horse, and a very fair seaman; but there are no patties for him.

O my dark Rosaleen,     Do not sigh, do not weep! The priests are on the ocean green,     They march along the deep. There’s wine from the royal Pope,     Upon the ocean green;    And Spanish ale shall give you hope,        My Dark Rosaleen!     My own Rosaleen! Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope, Shall give you health, and help, and hope,     My Dark Rosaleen! Over hills, and thro’ dales,     Have I roam’d for your sake; All yesterday I sail’d with sails     On river and on lake. The Erne, at its highest flood,     I dash’d across unseen, For there was lightning in my blood,     My Dark Rosaleen!     My own Rosaleen! O, there was lightning in my blood, Red lighten’d thro’ my blood.     My Dark Rosaleen! All day long, in unrest,     To and fro, do I move. The very soul within my breast     Is wasted for you, love! The heart in my bosom faints     To think of you, my Queen, My life of life, my saint of saints,     My Dark Rosaleen!     My own Rosaleen! To hear your sweet and sad complaints, My life, my love, my saint of saints,     My Dark Rosaleen! Woe and pain, pain and woe,     Are my lot, night and noon, To see your bright face clouded so,     Like to the mournful moon. But yet will I rear your throne     Again in golden sheen; ‘Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,     My Dark Rosaleen!     My own Rosaleen! ‘Tis you shall have the golden throne, ‘Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,     My Dark Rosaleen! Over dews, over sands,     Will I fly, for your weal: Your holy delicate white hands     Shall girdle me with steel. At home, in your emerald bowers,     From morning’s dawn till e’en, You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,     My Dark Rosaleen!     My fond Rosaleen! You’ll think of me through daylight hours My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,     My Dark Rosaleen! I could scale the blue air,     I could plough the high hills, Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,     To heal your many ills! And one beamy smile from you     Would float like light between My toils and me, my own, my true,     My Dark Rosaleen!     My fond Rosaleen! Would give me life and soul anew,     My Dark Rosaleen! O, the Erne shall run red,     With redundance of blood, The earth shall rock beneath our tread,        And flames wrap hill and wood, And gun-peal and slogan-cry     Wake many a glen serene, Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,     My Dark Rosaleen!     My own Rosaleen! The Judgement Hour must first be nigh, Ere you can fade, ere you can die,     My Dark Rosaleen!

Well, what happened to your scruples in the woodcutter’s cottage? You knew I thought you’d already left when I went inside.” “Why did you stay,” he countered smoothly, “when you realized I was still there?” In confused distress Elizabeth raked her hair off her forehead. “I knew I shouldn’t do it,” she admitted. “I don’t know why I remained.” “You stayed for the same reason I did,” he informed her bluntly. “We wanted each other.” “I was wrong,” she protested a little wildly. “Dangerous and-foolish!” “Foolish or not,” he said grimly, “I wanted you. I want you now.” Elizabeth made the mistake of looking at him, and his amber eyes captured hers against her will, holding them imprisoned. The shawl she’d been clutching as if it was a lifeline to safety slid from her nerveless hand and dangled at her side, but Elizabeth didn’t notice. “Neither of us has anything to gain by continuing this pretense that the weekend in England is over and forgotten,” he said bluntly. “Yesterday proved that it wasn’t over, if it proved nothing else, and it’s never been forgotten-I’ve remembered you all this time, and I know damn well you’ve remembered me.” Elizabeth wanted to deny it; she sensed that if she did, he’d be so disgusted with her deceit that he’d turn on his heel and leave her. She lifted her chin, unable to tear her gaze from his, but she was too affected by the things he’d just admitted to her to lie to him. “All right,” she said shakily, “you win. I’ve never forgotten you or that weekend. How could I?” she added defensively. He smiled at her angry retort, and his voice gentled to the timbre of rough velvet. “Come here, Elizabeth.” “Why?” she whispered shakily. “So that we can finish what we began that weekend.” Elizabeth stared at him in paralyzed terror mixed with violet excitement and shook her head in a jerky refusal. “I’ll not force you,” he said quietly, “nor will I force you to do anything you don’t want to do once you’re in my arms. Think carefully about that,” he warned, “because if you come to me now, you won’t be able to tell yourself in the morning that I made you do this against your will-or that you didn’t know what was going to happen. Yesterday neither of us knew what was going to happen. Now we do.” Some small, insidious voice in her mind urged her to obey, reminded her that after the public punishment she’d taken for the last time they were together she was entitled to some stolen passionate kisses, if she wanted them. Another voice warned her not to break the rules again. “I-I can’t,” she said in a soft cry. “There are four steps separating us and a year and a half of wanting drawing us together,” he said. Elizabeth swallowed. “Couldn’t you meet me halfway?” The sweetness of the question was almost Ian’s undoing, but he managed to shake his head. “Not this time. I want you, but I’ll not have you looking at me like a monster in the morning. If you want me, all you have to do is walk into my arms.” “I don’t know what I want,” Elizabeth cried, looking a little wildly at the valley below, as if she were thinking of leaping off the path. “Come here,” he invited huskily, “and I’ll show you.” It was his tone, not his words, that conquered her. As if drawn by a will stronger than her own, Elizabeth walked forward and straight into his arms that closed around her with stunning force. “I didn’t think you were going to do it,” he whispered gruffly against her hair.

Women who are never bitter and resentful are often the most querulous; and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy day, he had not a vixen in his eye — a fury with long nails, acrid and selfish. Depend upon it, he meant a good creature, who had no joy but in the happiness of the loved ones whom she contributed to make uncomfortable, putting by all the tid-bits for them and spending nothing on herself. Such a woman as Lisbeth, for example — at once patient and complaining, self-renouncing and exacting, brooding the livelong day over what happened yesterday and what is likely to happen to-morrow, and crying very readily both at the good and the evil. But a certain awe mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam, and when he said, “Leave me alone,” she was always silenced.

What I cannot understand is how your uncle could consider these two men suitable when they aren’t. Not one whit!” “We know that,” Elizabeth said wryly, bending down to pull a blade of grass from between the flagstones beneath the bench, “but evidently my ‘suitors’ do not, and that’s the problem.” As she said the words a thought began to form in her mind; her fingers touched the blade, and she went perfectly still. Beside her on the bench Alex drew a breath as if to speak, then stopped short, and in that pulsebeat of still silence the same idea was born in both their fertile minds. “Alex,” Elizabeth breathed, “all I have to-“ “Elizabeth,” Alex whispered, “it’s not as bad as it seems. All you have to-“ Elizabeth straightened slowly and turned. In that prolonged moment of silence two longtime friends sat in a rose garden, looking raptly at each other while time rolled back and they were girls again-lying awake in the dark, confiding their dreams and troubles and inventing schemes to solve them that always began with “If only…” “If only,” Elizabeth said as a smile dawned across her face and was matched by the one on Alex’s, “I could convince them that we don’t suit-“ “Which shouldn’t be hard to do,” Alex cried enthusiastically, “because it’s true!” The joyous relief of having a plan, of being able to take control of a situation that minutes before had threatened her entire life, sent Elizabeth to her feet, her face aglow with laughter. “Poor Sir Francis,” she chuckled, looking delightedly from Bentner to Alex as both grinned at her. “I greatly fear he’s in for the most disagreeable surprise when he realizes what a-a” she hesitated, thinking of everything an old roué would most dislike in his future wife-“a complete prude I am!” “And,” Alex added, “what a shocking spendthrift you are!” “Exactly!” Elizabeth agreed, almost twirling around in her glee. Sunlight danced off her gilded hair and lit her green eyes as she looked delightedly at her friends. “I shall make perfectly certain to give him glaring evidence I am both. Now then, as to the Earl of Canford…” “What a pity,” Alex said in a voice of exaggerated gloom, “you won’t be able to show him what a capital hand you are with a fishing pole. “Fish?” Elizabeth returned with a mock shudder. “Why, the mere thought of those scaly creatures positively makes me swoon!” “Except for that prime one you caught yesterday,” Bentner put in wryly. “You’re right,” she returned with an affectionate grin at the man who’d taught her to fish. “Will you find Berta and break the news to her about going with me? By the time we come back to the house she ought to be over her hysterics, and I’ll reason with her.” Bentner trotted off, his threadbare black coattails flapping behind him.

I just finished reading it [Tanner's Grief] and found it showed many sides of grief...often never talked about. Shared it with two friends yesterday...one has a friend that has been grieving many losses but too busy to stop and feel it. Personally I have believed unresolved grief is what's behind all of the anger, mass killings, hate etc.. So many are crying out but not allowing themselves to really cry through the inner pain and anguish as we are created to do as humans. I have seen this working with kids in schools...with hospice patients as chaplain, in spiritual direction one-on-one and pastoring a church. This is the first novel\book I have ever read Abby that deals with grief in a way that can help those reading it have hope they can do this...and not believe they have to do it alone or with those in their family or friends. Getting the help they need isn't being unfaithful to anyone. --A Retired Minister

The weather was fine, and, not to create suspicion, I took a turn at landscape, — this was after our quarrel was made up, you understand. After walking along the ramparts for some time, I was coming tranquilly home with my hands in my pockets, when I saw the street crowded with people. Such a crowd! like that for an execution. It fell upon me; I was seized, garroted, gagged, and guarded by the police. Ah! you don’t know — and I hope you never may know — what it is to be taken for a murderer by a maddened populace which stones you and howls after you from end to end of the principal street of a town, shouting for your death! Ah! those eyes were so many flames, all mouths were a single curse, while from the volume of that burning hatred rose the fearful cry: ‘To death! to death! down with the murderer!’” “So those Dalmatians spoke our language, did they?” said the count. “I observe you relate the scene as if it happened yesterday.

In the land of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them. 'It may be that my sons have sinned in their feasting.' Now the devil came before the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. 'And hast thou considered my servant Job?' God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God's words. 'Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name.' And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his mantel and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return into the earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever.' Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my childhood rises up again before me, and I breathe now as I breathed then, with the breast of a little child of eight, and I feel as I did then, awe and wonder and gladness. The camels at that time caught my imagination, and Satan, who talked like that with God, and God who gave His servant up to destruction, and His servant crying out: 'Blessed be Thy name although Thou dost punish me,' and then the soft and sweet singing in the church: 'Let my prayer rise up before Thee,' and again incense from the priest's censer and the kneeling and the prayer. Ever since then - only yesterday I took it up - I've never been able to read that sacred tale without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious and unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard the words of mockery and blame, proud words, 'How could God give up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from his sores with a pot-sherd - and for no object except to board to the devil! 'See what My saint can suffer for My Sake.' ' But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery - that the passing earthly show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise: 'That is good that I have created,' looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations, and for ever and ever, since for that he was ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and what lessons there are in it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, what strength is given with it to man! It is like a mold cast of the world and man and human nature, everything is there, and a law for everything for all the ages. And what mysteries are solved and revealed! God raises Job again, gives him wealth again. Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones, however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he could. It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising such each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life - and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!

Pointsman is the only one here maintaining his calm. He appears unruffled and strong. His lab coats have even begun lately to take on a Savile Row serenity, suppressed waist, flaring vents, finer material, rather rakishly notched lapels. In this parched and fallow time, he gushes affluence. After the baying has quieted down at last, he speaks, soothing: “There’s no danger.” “No danger?” screams Aaron Throwster, and the lot of them are off again muttering and growling. “Slothrop’s knocked out Dodson-Truck and the girl in one day!” “The whole thing’s falling apart, Pointsman!” “Since Sir Stephen came back, Fitzmaurice House has dropped out of our scheme, and there’ve been embarrassing inquires down from Duncan Sandys—“ “That’s the P.M.’s son-in-law, Pointsman, not good, not good!” “We’ve already begun to run into a deficit—“ “Funding,” IF you can keep your head, “is available, and will be coming in before long… certainly before we run into any serious trouble. Sir Stephen, far from being ‘knocked out,’ is quite happily at work at Fitzmaurice House, and is At Home there should any of you wish to confirm. Miss Borgesius is still active in the program, and Mr. Duncan Sandys is having all his questions answered. But best of all, we are budgeted well into fiscal ’46 before anything like a deficit begins to rear its head.” “Your Interested Parties again?” sez Rollo Groast. “Ah, I noticed Clive Mossmoon from Imperial Chemicals closeted with you day before yesterday,” Edwin Treacle mentions now. “Clive Mossmoon and I took an organic chemistry course or two together back at Manchester. Is ICI one of our, ah, sponsors, Pointsman?” “No,” smoothly, “Mossmoon, actually, is working out of Malet Street these days. I’m afraid we were up to nothing more sinister than a bit of routine coordination over the Schwarzkommando business.” “The hell you were. I happen to know Clive’s at ICI, managing some sort of polymer research.” They stare at each other. One is lying, or bluffing, or both are, or all of the above. But whatever it is Pointsman has a slight advantage. By facing squarely the extinction of his program, he has gained a great of bit of Wisdom: that if there is a life force operating in Nature, still there is nothing so analogous in a bureaucracy. Nothing so mystical. It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads. But survival depends on having strong enough desires—on knowing the System better than the other chap, and how to use it. It’s work, that’s all it is, and there’s no room for any extrahuman anxieties—they only weaken, effeminize the will: a man either indulges them, or fights to win, und so weiter. “I do wish ICI would finance part of this,” Pointsman smiles. “Lame, lame,” mutters the younger Dr. Groast. “What’s it matter?” cries Aaron Throwster. “If the old man gets moody at the wrong time this whole show can prang.” “Brigadier Pudding will not go back on any of his commitments,” Pointsman very steady, calm, “we have made arrangements with him. The details aren’t important.” They never are, in these meetings of his.

I have had so many Dwellings, Nat, that I know these Streets as well as a strowling Beggar: I was born in this Nest of Death and Contagion and now, as they say, I have learned to feather it. When first I was with Sir Chris. I found lodgings in Phenix Street off Hogg Lane, close by St Giles and Tottenham Fields, and then in later times I was lodged at the corner of Queen Street and Thames Street, next to the Blew Posts in Cheapside. (It is still there, said Nat stirring up from his Seat, I have passed it!) In the time before the Fire, Nat, most of the buildings in London were made of timber and plaister, and stones were so cheap that a man might have a cart-load of them for six-pence or seven-pence; but now, like the Aegyptians, we are all for Stone. (And Nat broke in, I am for Stone!) The common sort of People gawp at the prodigious Rate of Building and exclaim to each other London is now another City or that House was not there Yesterday or the Situacion of the Streets is quite Changd (I contemn them when they say such things! Nat adds). But this Capital City of the World of Affliction is still the Capitol of Darknesse, or the Dungeon of Man's Desires: still in the Centre are no proper Streets nor Houses but a Wilderness of dirty rotten Sheds, allways tumbling or takeing Fire, with winding crooked passages, lakes of Mire and rills of stinking Mud, as befits the smokey grove of Moloch. (I have heard of that Gentleman, says Nat all a quiver). It is true that in what we call the Out-parts there are numberless ranges of new Buildings: in my old Black-Eagle Street, Nat, tenements have been rais'd and where my Mother and Father stared without understanding at their Destroyer (Death! he cryed) new-built Chambers swarm with life. But what a Chaos and Confusion is there: meer fields of Grass give way to crooked Passages and quiet Lanes to smoking Factors, and these new Houses, commonly built by the London workmen, are often burning and frequently tumbling down (I saw one, says he, I saw one tumbling!). Thus London grows more Monstrous, Straggling and out of all Shape: in this Hive of Noise and Ignorance, Nat, we are tyed to the World as to a sensible Carcasse and as we cross the stinking Body we call out What News? or What's a clock? And thus do I pass my Days a stranger to mankind. I'll not be a Stander-by, but you will not see me pass among them in the World. (You will disquiet your self, Master, says Nat coming towards me). And what a World is it, of Tricking and Bartering, Buying and Selling, Borrowing and Lending, Paying and Receiving; when I walk among the Piss and Sir-reverence of the Streets I hear, Money makes the old Wife trot, Money makes the Mare to go (and Nat adds, What Words won't do, Gold will). What is their God but shineing Dirt and to sing its Devotions come the Westminster-Hall-whores, the Charing-cross whores, the Whitehall whores, the Channel-row whores, the Strand whores, the Fleet Street whores, the Temple-bar whores; and they are followed in the same Catch by the Riband weavers, the Silver-lace makers, the Upholsterers, the Cabinet-makers, Watermen, Carmen, Porters, Plaisterers, Lightemen, Footmen, Shopkeepers, Journey-men... and my Voice grew faint through the Curtain of my Pain.

At nine o'clock every morning you will read aloud one half-hour to me. Before that you will use the time to put this room in order. Wednesday and Saturday forenoons, after half-past nine, you will spend with Nancy in the kitchen, learning to cook. Other mornings you will sew with me. That will leave the afternoons for your music. I shall, of course, procure a teacher at once for you," she finished decisively, as she arose from her chair. Pollyanna cried out in dismay. "Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't left me any time at all just to to live." "To live, child! What do you mean? As if you weren't living all the time!" "Oh, of course I'd be breathing all the time I was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't be living. You breathe all the time you're asleep, but you aren't living. I mean living doing the things you want to do: playing outdoors, reading (to myself, of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out all about the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday. That's what I call living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn't living!

Jack, Jack,’ cried Stephen, running in. ‘I have been sadly remiss. You are promoted, I find. You are a great man – you are virtually an admiral! Give you joy, my dear, with all my heart. The young man in black clothes tells me you are the greatest man on the station, after the Commander-in-chief.’ ‘Why, I am commodore, as most people have the candour to admit,’ said Jack. ‘But I did mention it before, if you recollect. I spoke of my pendant.’ ‘So you did, joy; but perhaps I did not fully apprehend its true significance. I had a cloudy notion that the word commodore and indeed that curious little flag were connected with a ship rather than with a man – I am almost sure that we called the most important ship in the East India fleet, the ship commanded by the excellent Mr Muffit, the commodore. Pray explain this new and splendid rank of yours.’ ‘Stephen, if I tell you, will you attend?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘I have told you a great deal about the Navy before this, and you have not attended. Only yesterday I heard you give Farquhar a very whimsical account of the difference between the halfdeck and the quarterdeck, and to this day I do not believe you know the odds between . . .

Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong And lonesome comes up as down goes the day And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin' And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin' And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin' And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin' And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin' And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin' And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm And to yourself you sometimes say "I never knew it was gonna be this way Why didn't they tell me the day I was born" And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin' And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet And you need it badly but it lays on the street And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat And you think yer ears might a been hurt Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush And all the time you were holdin' three queens And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean Like in the middle of Life magazine Bouncin' around a pinball machine And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying That somebody someplace oughta be hearin' But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed And no matter how you try you just can't say it And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth And his jaws start closin with you underneath And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign And you say to yourself just what am I doin' On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin' On this curve I'm hanging On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking In this air I'm inhaling Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard Why am I walking, where am I running What am I saying, what am I knowing On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin' On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin' In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin' In the words that I'm thinkin' In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin' Who am I helping, what am I breaking What am I giving, what am I taking But you try with your whole soul best Never to think these thoughts and never to let Them kind of thoughts gain ground Or make yer heart pound ...

Never, not in the brightest days of the Renaissance, has learning appeared in such a radiant light as it did to the gay young men of imperial Athens. Listen to one of them talking to Socrates, just waked up in the early dawn by a persistent hammering at his door: “What’s here?” he cries out, still half asleep. “O Socrates,” and the voice is that of a lad he knows well, “Good news, good news!” “It ought to be at this unearthly hour. Well, out with it.” The young fellow is in the house now. “O Socrates, Protagoras has come. I heard it yesterday evening. And I was going to you at once but it was so late—” “What’s it all about—Protagoras? Has he stolen something of yours?” The boy bursts out laughing. “Yes, yes, that’s just it. He’s robbing me of wisdom. He has it—wisdom, and he can give it to me. Oh, come and go with me to him. Start now.” That eager, delightful boy in love with learning can be duplicated in nearly every dialogue of Plato. Socrates has but to enter a gymnasium; exercise, games, are forgotten. A crowd of ardent young men surround him. Tell us this. Teach us that, they clamor. What is Friendship? What is Justice? We will not let you off, Socrates. The truth—we want the truth. “What delight,” they say to each other, “to hear wise men talk!” “Egypt and Phœnicia love money,” Plato remarks in a discussion on how nations differ. “The special characteristic of our part of the world is the love of knowledge.

Fine, go get the dildos.” “Oh, my God.” Alec placed his hands on either side of his face. “This is the best day of my life.” Keela bit down on her lower lip. “What do you want me to do to them?” His eyes welled up. “It’s finally happening.” Bronagh covered her mouth with her hand when she couldn’t control the giggle that erupted from her. Alec’s attention zoned in on her and her mouth. “You … you’re playing … aren’t you?” he whispered, legit tears falling from his eyes. Keela laughed then, too. “That was cruel, Aideen,” Alec whispered and wiped his tear stained cheeks. “So fucking cruel. Don’t ever talk to me again. I don’t like any of you anymore.” He stormed out of the kitchen with Keela laughing as she ran after him. I looked to Kane and Nico when they grunted and found them staring at me. “What?” I asked. Nico blinked he eyes. “You shouldn’t lie like that, not about threesomes. It’s hurtful.” “It’s only hurtful because this is one threesome that isn’t comin’ true and it’s killin’ all of you.” Kane chimed in. “That doesn’t make it any less evil to lie about it. You got poor Alec’s hopes up.” “Just Alec’s?” I grinned. Kane glared at me. “Mine and Dominic’s too.” “Damn right,” Nico snarled. I laughed. “You’re all too easy to play with.” “You made Alec cry.” And I actually felt guilty about it. “Alec cried yesterday when he found out KFC were updatin’ their menu,” Bronagh cut in. “Him cryin’ isn’t that big of a deal, trust me.

Often I gazed at you in wonder. I stood at the window begun yesterday, stood and marvelled at you. Yet the new city was denied me and the unpersuaded landscape darkened, as though I were nothing. Nor did things close by venture to be understood. The street thrust upwards at the lamp post: I could see it was an alien thing. Over there a room, sympathetic, clear in the lamplight – I was already a part; this they sensed, closed the shutters. Remained there. Then a child cried. I knew the mothers in the houses around, of what they are capable – and I knew at once the inconsolable argument behind all weeping. Or a voice sang out and reached a little beyond expectation, or down below an old man who coughed full of reproach, as if his body were in the right and the gentler world in error. Then the hour struck, but I counted too late, it fell past me. Like a boy, a stranger, at last deemed worthy to join in yet drops the ball and knows none of the games in which the others indulge with such ease, stands there, looks away – to where?: I stood and suddenly became aware, you approached me, played with me, I understood, grown-up night, and I gazed at you enraptured. Where the towers raged and, with fate averted, a city loomed over me and before me were ranged unknowable mountains and in the narrowing circle of hungering strangeness welled the random flickering of my feelings there it was, higher one, no shame for you, that you know me. Your breath passed over me, across widening solemn expanses your smile entered into me.

Yesterday, after he had gone, they emerged into the verandah fresh from Moses and bursting with eagerness to tell me all about it. "Herr Schenk told us to-day about Moses," began the April baby, making a rush at me. "Oh?" "Yes, and a boser, boser Konig who said every boy must be deaded, and Moses was the allerliebster." "Talk English, my dear baby, and not such a dreadful mixture," I besought. "He wasn't a cat." "A cat?" "Yes, he wasn't a cat, that Moses—a boy was he." "But of course he wasn't a cat," I said with some severity; "no one ever supposed he was." "Yes, but mummy," she explained eagerly, with much appropriate hand- action, "the cook's Moses is a cat." "Oh, I see. Well?" "And he was put in a basket in the water, and that did swim. And then one time they comed, and she said—" "Who came? And who said?" "Why, the ladies; and the Konigstochter said, 'Ach hormal, da schreit so etwas.'" "In German?" "Yes, and then they went near, and one must take off her shoes and stockings and go in the water and fetch that tiny basket, and then they made it open, and that Kind did cry and cry and strampel so"—here both the babies gave such a vivid illustration of the strampeln that the verandah shook—"and see! it is a tiny baby. And they fetched somebody to give it to eat, and the Konigstochter can keep that boy, and further it doesn't go." "Do you love Moses, mummy?" asked the May baby, jumping into my lap, and taking my face in both her hands—one of the many pretty, caressing little ways of a very pretty, caressing little creature. "Yes," I replied bravely, "I love him." "Then I too!" they cried with simultaneous gladness, the seal having thus been affixed to the legitimacy of their regard for him.

Pity those who are punished. Alas! Who are we, after all? Who am I who speak to you now? Who are you, listening to me? Where do we come from? And is it quite certain we did nothing before we were born? The earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows whether man is not a previous offender against divine justice? Take a close look at life. It is so organized that everywhere there is a sense of punishment. Are you what is called a happy man? Well, you are sad every day. Every day has its great sorrow or petty anxiety. Yesterday you were trembling for the health of someone dear to you, today you fear for your own; tomorrow it will be financial worries, the next day some back-biter’s slander, the day after that a friend’s misfortune. Then the weather, then something broken or lost, then a pleasure that your conscience and your backbone begrudge you. Another time, what is going on in the world. Not to mention heartache. And so on and so forth. One cloud clears, another forms. Hardly one day in a hundred that is entirely joyous, entirely sunny. And you are one of that small number who are happy! As for the rest of mankind, stagnant night is upon them. Reflective minds rarely use those terms, ‘the happy’ and ‘the unhappy’. In this world, the antechamber to another, of course, no one is happy. The real human division is this: the enlightened and the benighted. To reduce the numbers of the benighted, to increase the numbers of the enlightened, that is the object. That is why we cry: Education! Science! To teach someone to read is to light a fire! Every spelled-out syllable sparkles! And he who says ‘light’ does not necessarily say ‘joy’. People suffer in the light. An excess of it burns. The flame is enemy to the wing. To burn without ceasing to fly, that is the marvel of genius. Even if you have knowledge and even if you have love, you will still suffer. Each day begins with tears. The enlightened weep, if only for the benighted.

No, no. It has quite healed over again. I am very well. It is only that I don’t sleep. Toss, turn, can’t get off, then ill dreams and I wake up some time in the middle watch – never get off again, and I am stupid all the rest of the day. And damned ill-tempered, Stephen; I sway away on all top-ropes for a nothing, and then I am sorry afterwards. Is it my liver, do you think? Not yesterday, but the day before I had a damned unpleasant surprise: I was shaving, and thinking of something else; and Killick had hung the glass aft the scuttle instead of its usual place. So just for a moment I caught sight of my face as though it was a stranger looking in. When I understood it was me, I said, “Where did I get that damned forbidding ship’s corporal’s face?” and determined not to look like that again – it reminded me of that unhappy fellow Pigot, of the Hermione. And this morning there it was again, glaring back at me out of the glass. That is another reason why I am so glad to see you: you will give me one of your treble-shotted slime-draughts to get me to sleep. It’s the devil, you know, not sleeping: no wonder a man looks like a ship’s corporal. And these dreams – do you dream, Stephen?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘I thought not. You have a head-piece . . . however, I had one some nights ago, about your narwhal; and Sophie was mixed up with it in some way. It sounds nonsense, but it was so full of unhappiness that I woke blubbering like a child. Here it is, by the way.’ He reached behind him and passed the long tapering spiral of ivory. Stephen’s eyes gleamed as he took it and turned it slowly round and round in his hands. ‘Oh thank you, thank you, Jack,’ he cried. ‘It is perfect – the very apotheosis of a tooth.’ ‘There were some longer ones, well over a fathom, but they had lost their tips, and I thought you would like to get the point, ha, ha, ha.’ It was a flash of his old idiot self, and he wheezed and chuckled for some time, his blue eyes as clear and delighted as they had been long ago: wild glee over an infinitesimal grain of merriment.

Sancho asked the landlord what he had to give them for supper. To this the landlord replied that his mouth should be the measure; he had only to ask what he would; for that inn was provided with the birds of the air and the fowls of the earth and the fish of the sea. "There's no need of all that," said Sancho; "if they'll roast us a couple of chickens we'll be satisfied, for my master is delicate and eats little, and I'm not over and above gluttonous." The landlord replied he had no chickens, for the kites had stolen them. "Well then," said Sancho, "let senor landlord tell them to roast a pullet, so that it is a tender one." "Pullet! My father!" said the landlord; "indeed and in truth it's only yesterday I sent over fifty to the city to sell; but saving pullets ask what you will." "In that case," said Sancho, "you will not be without veal or kid." "Just now," said the landlord, "there's none in the house, for it's all finished; but next week there will be enough and to spare." "Much good that does us," said Sancho; "I'll lay a bet that all these short-comings are going to wind up in plenty of bacon and eggs." "By God," said the landlord, "my guest's wits must be precious dull; I tell him I have neither pullets nor hens, and he wants me to have eggs! Talk of other dainties, if you please, and don't ask for hens again." "Body o' me!" said Sancho, "let's settle the matter; say at once what you have got, and let us have no more words about it." "In truth and earnest, senor guest," said the landlord, "all I have is a couple of cow-heels like calves' feet, or a couple of calves' feet like cowheels; they are boiled with chick-peas, onions, and bacon, and at this moment they are crying 'Come eat me, come eat me." "I mark them for mine on the spot," said Sancho; "let nobody touch them; I'll pay better for them than anyone else, for I could not wish for anything more to my taste; and I don't care a pin whether they are feet or heels." "Nobody shall touch them," said the landlord; "for the other guests I have, being persons of high quality, bring their own cook and caterer and larder with them.

Dammit, Holly, I'd never have believed you'd do something so harebrained. Do you understand that the building could have collapsed around you and those henwits? I know what condition those places are in, and I wouldn't let a dog of mine venture past the threshold, much less my wife. And the men—good God, when I think of the low-living bastards who were in your vicinity, it makes my blood curdle! Sailors and drunkards on every corner—do you know what would happen if one of them took it into his head to snap up a little treat like you?” As the thought seemed to temporarily render him incapable of speech, Holly took the opportunity to defend herself. “I was with companions, and—” “Ladies,” he said savagely. “Armed with umbrellas, no doubt. Just what do you think they would have been able to do, had you met with bad company?” “The few men we encountered in the neighborhood were harmless,” Holly argued. “In fact, it was the very same place you lived in during your childhood, and those men were no different from you—” “In those days, I'd have played merry hell with you, if I'd managed to get my hands on you,” he said harshly. “Have no illusions, milady… you'd have ended face-to-the wall in Maidenhead Lane with your skirts around your waist. The only wonder is that you didn't meet that fate with some randy sailor yesterday.” “You're exaggerating,” Holly said defensively, but that only roused his temper to a higher pitch. He continued to blister her ears with a lecture that was furious and insulting by turns, naming the various diseases she could have contracted and the vermin she had likely encountered, until Holly couldn't bear another word. “I've heard enough,” she cried hotly. “It's clear to me that I'm not to make a single decision without asking your permission first—I'm to be treated as a child, and you will act as a dictator.” The accusation was unfair, and she knew it, but she was too incensed to care. Suddenly his fury seemed to evaporate, and he stared at her with an inscrutable gaze. A long moment passed before he spoke again. “You wouldn't have taken Rose to such a place, would you?” “Of course not! But she is a little girl, and I'm—” “My life,” he interrupted quietly. “You're my entire life. If anything ever happens to you, Holly, there is nothing left for me.

Dear Willow Tree, You are not alone. I, too, have the soul of a willow tree. I have shallow roots, and I am brittle. Although it doesn’t matter to me if I am near water or not, water tends to lead the way in my life. I follow my tears as they reassure me that one day life will be better than it was yesterday. However, just like you, I love the sunlight, and the open space is a compliment. When I am in an open space, it makes me feel alive. However, I am used to being in confined spaces, and I am quickly swallowed up by sorrow. What once was sunlight becomes shaded, and my shadow takes over—and smothers me in despair. Weeping willow, why does your soul cry? You are so beautiful and free. Oh, I get it; you are just like me. Looks can be deceiving. If someone sees me right now, they wouldn’t believe my story. They would call me a compulsive liar. Maybe they would think I was the kind of girl who wants pity and attention for no reason. If only they knew. We do not yearn for their pity. Maybe their help, but not their pity. What can pity do for us? Nothing. We most definitely do not want their attention. Strangely, they give us attention when we do not need or want it. They pay attention to us as they look through their car windows and roll up their window before they arrive at the stop sign or red light. Then they stare at us and wonder to themselves, how did they get here? Pathetically they judge us, thinking we did this to ourselves. Like I just said—they are quick to show pity and give us the wrong kind of attention by judging us. I know you understand where I am coming from. They do the same to you as well. They admire your beauty but fail to realize you are trying to survive. Yet they do not pay any mind that the water is nearby and your roots are shallow and brittle. Just like you, my ‘leaves’ emotions and thoughts are brittle. I notice your greenish-yellow color. I am full of wonder, and at the end of the yellowish color, it has formed a paler green color at the bottom. Are these your emotions as well? I, too, wonder a lot in my mind. You know I am a wanderer because I have been to too many places and seen a lot of things. It reminds me of the twigs that are connected to your leaves. I am connected to a lot of places and people—for both good and bad. Right here and right now, I feel your energy, and I believe we both feel safe and loved. I understand you, Ms. Willow Tree, because I, too, have the soul of a willow tree. Therefore, you are never alone, and you never will be.

Elizabeth’s breakfast had cured Ian’s hunger, in fact, the idea of ever eating again made his stomach churn as he started for the barn to check on Mayhem’s injury. He was partway there when he saw her off to the left, sitting on the hillside amid the bluebells, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead resting atop them. Even with her hair shining like newly minted gold in the sun, she looked like a picture of heartbreaking dejection. He started to turn away and leave her to moody privacy; then, with a sigh of irritation, he changed his mind and started down the hill toward her. A few yards away he realized her shoulders were shaking with sobs, and he frowned in surprise. Obviously there was no point in pretending the meal had been good, so he injected a note of amusement into his voice and said, “I applaud your ingenuity-shooting me yesterday would have been too quick.” Elizabeth started violently at the sound of his voice. Snapping her head up, she stared off to the left, keeping her tear-streaked face averted from him. “Did you want something?” “Dessert?” Ian suggested wryly, leaning slightly forward, trying to see her face. He thought he saw a morose smile touch her lips, and he added, “I thought we could whip up a batch of cream and put it on the biscuit. Afterward we can take whatever is left, mix it with the leftover eggs, and use it to patch the roof.” A teary chuckle escaped her, and she drew a shaky breath but still refused to look at him as she said, “I’m surprised you’re being so pleasant about it.” “There’s no sense crying over burnt bacon.” “I wasn’t crying over that,” she said, feeling sheepish and bewildered. A snowy handkerchief appeared before her face, and Elizabeth accepted it, dabbing at her wet cheeks. “Then why were you crying?” She gazed straight ahead, her eyes focused on the surrounding hills splashed with bluebells and hawthorn, the handkerchief clenched in her hand. “I was crying for my own ineptitude, and for my inability to control my life,” she admitted. The word “ineptitude” startled Ian, and it occurred to him that for the shallow little flirt he supposed her to be she had an exceptionally fine vocabulary. She glanced up at him then, and Ian found himself gazing into a pair of green eyes the amazing color of wet leaves. With tears still sparkling on her long russet lashes, her long hair tied back in a girlish bow, her full breasts thrusting against the bodice of her gown, she was a picture of alluring innocence and intoxicating sensuality. Ian jerked his gaze from her breasts and said abruptly, “I’m going to cut some wood so we’ll have it for a fire tonight. Afterward I’m going to do some fishing for our supper. I trust you’ll find a way to amuse yourself in the meantime.” Startled by his sudden brusqueness, Elizabeth nodded and stood up, dimly aware that he did not offer his hand to assist her.

Antonina Mikhailovna,” said Dmitry, “remember everything I told you yesterday and take pity on Michel. If you don’t agree to his proposal, he’ll have to engage in an open, overt struggle with his aunt. He will be faced with persecution. You know what it’s like from experience; you’ve borne it yourself. It’s not easy, is it?” “He’s a man,” I said. “He can’t be victimized like a woman.” “That’s true. But remember, your own heart has hardened against the people you live with, whereas he still loves his aunt and owes her everything. She raised him. His father will also side with her. Michel will suffer twice as much. But if he’s already married – then, in her opinion, it will be an irrevocable misfortune. Believe me, she’ll forgive him, if not immediately, then very soon; but, until it’s all settled, she’s sure to persecute both of you. If you don’t pity yourself, then at least take pity on him.” “Do you have the right,” asked Michel heatedly, “the right not to consent and to hesitate? Why? In your opinion have we not suffered enough? Are we suffering too little now? Haven’t we both earned the right to be happy? My God, who can be bothered by our happiness? Or do you love me less now? Remember what you told me two years ago; remember what you repeated in your letters. You assured me you’d be firm and resolute. Prove your love for me – the time has come.” I rushed to him and burst into tears. “Take me away from here,” I cried. “Do as you wish!

And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers, But all that lives is born to die. And so I say to you that nothing really matters, And all you do is stand and cry. I don't know what to say about it When all your ears are turned away, But now's the time to look and look again at what you see, Is that the way it ought to stay?

Flower killers ( PART 1 ) Flower killers There is a war going on out there, Wherever you turn to see, it is everywhere, Guns firing bullets that bear one address: kill, Who? Just anyone do it at your free will, And the guns spray death in all directions, Giving rise to endless predilections, That of a father, a mother and a lover, Whoever the bullet may hit, is lost forever, And when bullets turn stray, They hit anything that comes in their way, It does not matter whether you are a foe or a friend, That time the bullet, only its purpose does defend, That to kill and shoot anyhow and anyone, It can be a father, a mother, a daughter, a lover, or just a human someone, And as the victim falls and collapses on the ground, The bullet pierces deeper like the canines of a hungry hound, And no matter how hard you tried it cannot be bound, Because the war is everywhere and so is its echoing and deathly sound, That tempts the bullet to travel and shoot someone, somewhere, And it couldn't be happier than now, because the war is everywhere, Yesterday a stray bullet whizzed through the air, And it hit a flower that had just bloomed and looked fair, Its petals got shredded into countless pieces, The pollen grains flew in the air and fell in different places, And as they fell, they all cried, “murder!” But the bullet had no intention to surrender, The tattered flower petals fell on the ground, I realised there is a new gang called, “flower killers” and they abound, The bee and the butterfly desperately searched for their missing flower, And ah the pain they felt as a dismayed lover, Their wings dropped and they fell to ground like dead autumn leaves, Where except the bullet, even death grieves, The other flowers looked helplessly at the fallen youth and it's still falling memories, And in honour of the killed flower, they named their garden, the garden of tragedies, And to pay their homages, they all wilted on the same day, The garden looked barren even on a new Summer day, The bullet that killed the flower lies embedded in the fence, Same bullet that killed someone who possessed nothing in self defence, Continued in part 2...

A tray of dirty tea things sat forgotten about on the floor. There were more chairs than normal, all evidence of yesterday’s meeting. One teacup, I noticed, had lipstick on its rim, the same glossy red colour that Miss Carter wore. Ephraim had mentioned ‘the others’: it didn’t take much guessing to work out who they were. When it came to welcoming strangers to Budmouth Point, Miss Carter and Mrs. Henderson had experience. First evacuees, now refugees. That was it, wasn’t it? There were people in Europe, fleeing for their lives, who were escaping here, to Budmouth Point. These were the visitors Ephraim was expecting. The realisation made me dizzy. It connected to Sukie didn’t it, because she’d cried trying to tell me how ‘heartbreaking’ it was not being able to help – yet in writing to Ephraim, maybe she’d found a way to. Perhaps their letters were actually full of plans of how they might get people away from the Nazis. It would certainly explain why Sukie wrote so much and so often. Bit by bit I could feel it coming together in my head. That map with the foreign place names I’d found in her drawer at home – was this where the boat was coming from? ‘Are you all right?’ Queenie asked suddenly. Looking concerned, she offered me a chair. ‘I’m fine.’ I stayed standing. ‘No you’re not.’ Queenie pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a headache. ‘You’re a smart girl, Olive. I’d a feeling you’d guess what was going on. I didn’t think Ephraim could keep it from you for long.’ ‘He told me about writing to Sukie, that’s all.’ I said, though it wasn’t strictly true. But I was unsure how much to say. ‘You’re learning that some things need to be secret.’ Queenie gave me a wry smile. ‘I trust you can keep this one?’ I hesitated. She hadn’t actually told me what the secret was, but I’d already petty much guessed. You’re expecting some people, from place that’s occupied by the Germans?’ ‘Yes… from France.’ She sat back in her chair, raking her fingers through her hair. ‘We’re bringing them here for a few days, giving them false papers, then helping them on their way again.’ ‘Where will they go?’ ‘To countries that aren’t as strict as ours about Jewish refugees: America, Canada, Australia maybe.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Is what you’re doing against the law?’ ‘Probably. If we keep a low profile, we might just get away with it.’ She sighed heavily. ‘They’ve got to get here first, though. It’s such a risky mission. They were smuggled out of Austria all the way to the French coast, and quite frankly they’ve been lucky to make it that far. We were expecting the boat ten days ago…’ I nodded, my mind whizzing. Day 9. The only part of Sukie’s notes I understood. ‘Do you know why Ephraim and my sister wrote to each other?’ I asked suddenly. ‘What? Oh, Gloria mentioned Sukie was looking for a penpal – it was a new “thing” apparently.’ She rolled her eyes rather dismissively. ‘Ephraim was so lonely, we both thought it might cheer him up. It certainly worked – he’s quite taken with your Sukie.’ ‘There’s more to it than that,’ I ventured. ‘My sister’s involved in this mission, isn’t she?’ Queenie frowned. ‘Your sister? Why would she be?’ ‘You don’t know what she’s like,’ I replied, for it was very clear now that Queenie’d never written to Sukie, nor probably ever met her. If she had she’d realise how much my sister hated the Nazis, how upset the news coming out of Europe made her, how headstrong and brave she was. Doing something to try and help people threatened by Hitler was exactly the sort of thing my sister would want to be part of. I couldn’t understand why Queenie was so certain she wasn’t.

I look up at James, my dear James. Everything else in the room-the madman with the gun, the crying girl, the dead bleeding boy-fades at the edges of my vision. It’s only me and James.

1.​“Nothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles.” Eventually, if I keep increasing my well-being and competence with the three things I mentioned above, I have always gotten out of the gutter. 2.​“I like walking in the rain, because nobody can see my tears.” I have to give myself permission to be sad. The last time I cried was… yesterday. And it washes away and a new day begins. 3.​“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” The end of last year and the beginning of this year was a difficult time for me. The only thing that saved me was laughing as much as possible.

Hippies masquerading as pseudo philosophers love to tell anyone who will listen that reality doesn’t exist, it’s a construct, like everything else. But if reality doesn’t exist, then explain my shadow, the kid’s, the looks we receive. I remember coming home to you after receiving my extra shadow, both of us sore with shame and guilt. You were able to shed those feelings within a few days once the freshness wore off. But me, I’m simple—things designed to manipulate me tend to succeed. And my shadow is no exception. It follows me everywhere, a constant reminder of the one thing I can’t find it in me to talk about. I showed up to school and, seeing the shame in my eyes, one of my troubled kids pulled me aside and said, Old news, right, Miss? and I started crying on the spot. But you never blamed me, did you, Beau? It actually made me feel worse, as if I had to double the blame to make up for your understanding. If I was the only one blaming me, the guilt had no outlet, nothing to do but grow its own vascular system and circulate through my body. “What’s today going to be like?” I ask the kid. “Like yesterday, except today?” She is covered in snot, needing me.

As you can probably guess, Wild Man likes sex. He likes a lot of sex. Doesn’t matter where we are, what we’re doing, or the time of day. If he becomes randy, he pounces. Take yesterday for instance, while we were out picking berries. I was down on my knees trying to reach a nice juicy patch of plump blackberries. Of course, I was naked—he still refuses to give me clothes, the bastard—so my wiggling bare ass was up in the air. The next thing I knew, big hands were gripping my hips and pulling me back, angling me where he wanted me. I knew what was coming, and I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t ready—seriously, who would be while picking berries and getting poked by thorns—but my protest died on a cry of sharp pain. No preparation. He just went for it as usual. And I was as dry as Sister Mary. So the sudden intrusion wasn’t comfortable in the slightest, and I couldn’t imagine it was much better for him. Did he care, though? Nope. He just kept going, banging me as hard as he could. Thankfully—or not thankfully, depending on how you look at it—it didn’t take long to get my juices flowing. That’s what happens when you’re unbelievably attracted to the man who’s holding you captive. Your body gives your mind a big fuck you, along with the middle finger, and takes what it wants, even begging for more or to go faster, harder. Another time, we were walking back from taking a bath. I was admiring a patch of pretty flowers and telling Wild Man a funny story about Rika. I was laughing and having a surprisingly good time, when my hips were suddenly caught in his hard grip. I was shoved over a large boulder, my breasts pressed against the abrasive surface. Then he mounted me from behind and fucked me silly. That time, I was wet. He had just fucked me in the water, and I still had part of him leaking out of me.

Yesterday, we lit a Yahrzeit candle that sat on the kitchen counter and burned brightly in memory of you. We will light a Yahrzeit candle every year on this day. And every year, it will burn out on my birthday. And every year, that cruel juxtaposition will remind me that life is moving on without you. This is how it is now: equal parts joy and sorrow. Everything all at once. I have this vivid memory of driving with Iris to the grocery store last summer on a particularly dark day. It’s one of those seemingly insignificant moments that made a permanent mark. “You Are My Sunshine” shuffled onto Pandora Toddler Radio. Glancing at Iris in the rearview mirror, I was simultaneously overwhelmed with pure joy as I saw her singing and clapping along and sorrow that you would never get to see such a spectacular view. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away. The other night dear when I lay sleeping, I dreamed I held you in my arms. When I awoke dear, I was mistaken, So I hung my head and cried. This song is so happy and sad at once. It’s what it feels like to be alive. It’s what it feels like to lose someone you love but still be surrounded by so much light.

I enter her French doors, not even bothering to be quiet. She has been crying. What in the fuck happened that she wanted to see me? The masked me? Not Easton Bradley Sinnett. I'm fucking pissed. Jealous of myself that she didn't call Sin. Was I not enough yesterday and last night? Did she think I was fucking around? That she doesn't belong to me?

Do not be too cross with me for being so sad yesterday; I felt very good, very much at ease – but for some reason at those moments of my life when I feel best I am always sad. As for my crying, that was just nonsense; I myself do not know why I am forever crying. My emotions are painful and exasperating; I have a morbid sensibility. The sky was pale and cloudless, the sun was setting, the evening was quiet – all that – yet I do not know how it was: yesterday my mood made me experience everything as being painful and tormenting, so that my heart overflowed and my soul begged for tears.

Often I gazed at you in wonder. I stood at the window begun yesterday, stood and marvelled at you. Yet the new city was denied me and the unpersuaded landscape darkened, as though I were nothing. Nor did things close by venture to be understood. The street thrust upwards at the lamp post: I could see it was an alien thing. Over there a room, sympathetic, clear in the lamplight – I was already a part; this they sensed, closed the shutters. Remained there. Then a child cried. I knew the mothers in the houses around, of what they are capable – and I knew at once the inconsolable argument behind all weeping. Or a voice sang out and reached a little beyond expectation, or down below an old man who coughed full of reproach, as if his body were in the right and the gentler world in error. Then the hour struck, but I counted too late, it fell past me. Like a boy, a stranger, at last deemed worthy to join in yet drops the ball and knows none of the games in which the others indulge with such ease, stands there, looks away – to where?: I stood and suddenly became aware, you approached me, played with me, I understood, grown-up night, and I gazed at you enraptured. Where the towers raged and, with fate averted, a city loomed over me and before me were ranged unknowable mountains and in the narrowing circle of hungering strangeness welled the random flickering of my feelings – : there it was, higher one, no shame for you, that you know me. Your breath passed over me, across widening solemn expanses your smile entered into me.

With her! Today and at the moment right now, But soon, nowhere and no more now, That is how she loves me, Always now, but in a moment nowhere to be, Today dreaming about yesterday, Where tomorrow is never meant to be today, An un-ending streak of yesterdays and todays, Where she is nothing more than the memory of the bygone days, And how the memories flashback in every passing moment, Reminding me of her and her seductive scent, As she flashes before my eyes, I curse my helplessness because I cannot hold her despite my million tries, Then something within me cries and slowly dies, And in this permanent visual fixation now my heart lies!

I told them how I missed her the most on rainy days, and during winters. I told them that the sky hadn’t been as blue since she passed, but as of late, with every mile I traveled and every challenge I overcame, I was getting closer to her, or solidifying her presence within me, and I was beginning to notice the indelible hue again.

Eye on the shuttlecock, she ran forward, raised her battledore high, and slammed right into Henry Weston’s chest. The wind knocked from her, Emma lost her balance and might have fallen had not Mr. Weston’s arms shot out and caught her about the waist and shoulder. “Oh,” she cried, embarrassed to have plowed into the man. Embarrassed to find his arms around her. Embarrassed to find she liked it. “I’m so sorry,” she blurted, pushing away from him. “Don’t be. I admire your singular focus. My goodness, Miss Smallwood, where is the timid little creature who flinched at every flying bird as though it were a cricket ball headed for her nose?” Emma straightened and righted her off-kilter bonnet. “I was determined not to embarrass myself,” she admittedly breathlessly. “Only to do just that.” He chuckled, and their eyes met in a moment of shared levity. Then he sobered. “Thank you for the laugh, Miss Smallwood. Just what I needed after yesterday.

I’m going to help your aunt,” I say. He grins at me. “Helping? Is that what they’re calling it now?” Sky is already out the door, and I really want to go with her. “She has a boyfriend,” I say. He shakes his head. “Not anymore. He dumped her yesterday. It wasn’t pretty.” So she doesn’t have a boyfriend? My heart leaps. Hot damn. “Did she cry a lot?” He shakes his head. “But there was a weird discussion about orgasms, his junk, and him being selfish in bed.” He shudders. “Way more than I wanted to hear.” “Way more than you should be repeating, too,” I warn. He grips my shoulder. “You need all the help you can get, man,” he says, giving me a squeeze. He grins. I flip him the bird in a way that Joey and Mellie can’t see and follow Sky into the hallway.

I can hear the cries of the Costers upon Wall Street, below; and the calling of the Hour; and lately, now the Day darkens, a Dialogue between two waiting Chair-Men, upon the Chances of a Horse they favour to run at Flushing, named Royal Roger. Merriment, and bawdy Jests on the Subject of this Name. But I could make Nothing distinct of the Voices coming up directly through the Floor, from the Court and Assembly. They were too muffl’d, and Business down below is now prorogued, to judge by their Dwindling. It is a melancholy Reflection, that only a few Days past, I was dancing across that very Floor, and there receiving the Solicitations (albeit more terrifying than flattering) of the Powerful. I am imprison’d today, in gross Proximity to my swelling State of yesterday. The

Yesterday I saw my new born baby masseur ( local bai which has no idea what is right or wrong) massaging my new born baby . My instincts was telling me that a harsh massage is not required ( which she was doing by providing all kinds of wrong exercises as per pediatric) but with all elders experience and this being fourth newborn child in my house I decided to observe massage, though I was feeling to ask her to stop immediately but was helpless with all elders present .Soon after the massage I said my wife we need to consult pediatric about this massage (consultation should have been done before starting massage but was helpless in front of elders decision). In consultation pediatric informed us that massage is only for bonding between masseur and baby (so it is better if Mom gives massage). If massage is not provided to babies its completely fine and if done should be done gently. After listening to this I was feeling guilty and so bad as it is my duty to protect my new born baby against any harm and I was not able to do so. My new born was shouting and crying for help while having massage came in front of my eyes and for this I am very angry with myself and my family members excluding my wife as she herself had c-section delivery and was asked by doctor to rest. Mothers as it is don't get enough time even to sleep after delivery for at least a week. Nobody wants to harm baby but before taking any action it was my family's duty to know what is right. Nobody has the right to abuse anyone specifically newborn. From this blog I want to make everyone aware that please don't rely on anyone and take actions always take expert advice (pediatric) in case of babies as there are lot of misconceptions and I request elders that its OK if you don't know what's right but please don't misguide and only when damn sure then only advice. Also confirm that with expert before implementing. I hope that I am able to help some of the newborn by not getting that so called good massage (actually a harsh massage).

Its seven o'clock," Dean Rein said. "Fantastic," I replied, "And to think, just yesterday at this time it was also seven o'clock. What a roller coaster life is." "Our appointment was for six." "I had to go to Pierre's." "Really?" he asked, raising his eyebrow. "A relationship is a good step for you." "Ew. No. It was just one of his cries for help, but the noose broke the ceiling fan and he hurt his knees." "My god, Astrid.

Where are the cows?” asked Lizzy, looking around. “In the barn, waiting to be milked,” said Farmer Ben. “But they left plenty of cow pies out here yesterday, so watch your step.” To one side of the barn stood the chicken coop. Ben stopped in front of it and said, “Before milking the cows, we have to feed the chickens.” The chicken coop was even smellier than the fertilizer. “Pew!” said Queenie. “Go ahead, Ferdy. You’ll fit right in!” Farmer Ben picked up a large bag of chicken feed and poured the feed into a bucket. He handed the bucket to Ferdy. “Now, how hard can feeding chickens be?” he said. “Show us how to do it, my boy.” He unlatched the door to the coop and held it open. “Go on, son. Git!” Ferdy stepped inside and walked to the center of the chicken coop. He scooped a handful of feed from the bucket and said, “I believe the common phrase for such a task is ‘piece of cake.’” Then he began to scatter the feed in a circle around him. The cubs heard Farmer Ben chuckle. “That’s mighty close to your body, son!” he called to Ferdy. But it was too late. Ferdy was already surrounded by a mass of clucking, pecking chickens. What’s more, in scattering feed so close to him, he had accidentally dropped some into the cuffs of his overalls. Soon there were chickens pecking hungrily at his ankles. “Ouch!” cried Ferdy. “Ow! Stop! Back, I say!” The cubs laughed as Ferdy dropped the bucket and did an awkward dance to avoid his attackers. Lucky for him, the chickens went for the feed that had spilled from the fallen bucket. That gave Ferdy a chance to dash through the door and slam it behind him. Farmer Ben patted Ferdy on the back. “We farmers have a saying,” he chuckled. “‘He who drops chicken feed at his own feet soon finds himself in a peck of trouble.’ Get it? Peck of trouble?” “Very clever,” Ferdy grumbled as the other cubs hooted and hollered.

I stayed to spy on them. I heard my mother moaning, and crying out for Chris. Then she surprised me. “Momma, where has Momma gone, Chris? It’s been so long since she visited us, months, months, and the twins don’t grow.” “Cathy, Cathy, my poor darling, stop thinking about the past,” said my grandmother. “Please hold on, eat and drink to keep up your strength. Chris will come to save us both.” “Cory, stop playing that same tune over and over. I’m so tired of your lyrics. Why do you write such sad songs? The night will end, it will. Chris, tell Cory the day will begin soon.

The Estate of Solemnity By right, it reigns in its places- in long beards Of spanish moss hanging from a live oak On a windless evening, and in the chill of new Icicles rigidly, imperceptibly lengthening. Cavern Stalagmites are almost majestic with solemnity. The black morel and the tree ear mushroom Are solemn without grief, solemn without joy, Solemn without reverence, without a single Flicker of green or lift of a wing or cry. But the most solemn, most stalwart, the least Wavering are the tors and crags, the towering desert Spires and carved pinnacles, the devoted ascents And sharp, raw rims of boulders and bluffs, the maw Of a distant cave I saw yesterday and the day before, And the grave echo there of the day and the before. Mystics and divines have always sought the pure, White-rock serenity of the silent, solemn moon Bound in its flight alone far above the peaks, far Above the earth, surrounded there forever by bevies Of giddy stars, all asparkling, all aglow.

pranced to her cub's side. "Lucky!" she yelled. "How many times do I have to tell you to go home and stay with your siblings? You are a tiny lion cub, not a brave adventurer!" The mother lizard smiled up at Lucky. "Actually, I'm not so sure," she said. "This little cub travelled across the entire jungle and brought my lost baby home. That makes him the bravest, greatest adventurer this jungle has ever seen!" Lucky's mother's jaw dropped. She looked at the lizard. She looked at Lucky. Then she smiled. "You have proven me wrong. You really are a great adventurer! But a tiny cub like you, traveling across the entire jungle? How did you do it?" she asked. "Roar!" Lucky cried. He stood tall, puffed up his chest and said; "Because I am Lucky!" Lucky and Pec the parrot’s great adventure! The next day, Lucky was feeling especially brave. After all he saved a little lizard from the dangers of the jungle and brought him safely home. His mother was so proud of him that she didn't even punish him for not babysitting his brothers and sisters! She even gave him the best part of their meal for dinner. And he had permission to spend 2 hours in the jungle this very morning. But he had to stay close to home and come back in time to babysit his younger brother and sisters. "There is much adventuring to be done in just 2 hours!" he said to himself, as walked under the shady green canopy, following a path into the jungle. "But I am the bravest, greatest adventurer in the jungle. Watch out jungle! Here I come! Roooaaaar! “Suddenly he saw the tall grass to his right sway, but there wasn't any wind. The grass rustled as if someone was moving around. Lucky crouched down in his stalking pose that he had practiced as part of his adventure skills. He crept forward, his golden-green eyes wide and fixed on the swaying grass. Slowly, oh so slowly he moved closer and closer. He was right in front of the tall green grass, and heard the rustling again. "ROOOOOAAAARRR!" He burst through the grass with his very best roar and his very best pounce. "AAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK" screeched a large shiny grey parrot. "What is wrong with you?! It is extremely rude to just bust into a parrot's home without knocking! I swear, kids these days just don't have any manners!" The parrot shrieked right into Lucky's ear. "Owwww. Stop it! I am a brave adventurer and I am saving you!" Lucky snapped back, "It's also rude to yell in the ear of the lion saving your life" The parrot's head feathers stood up on the back of his head like he had a mohawk, and he glared at Lucky from piercing yellow eyes. "Lions are known to eat birds like me. I am not going to let my glorious self, become your breakfast. I am a mighty warrior and if you eat me, I will give you a very upset belly. I promise". Lucky laughed a barky lion laugh, "I do not eat birds. My mother is a great hunter and brings home only the biggest and fattest of animals for us to eat. Besides, I will be a great adventurer, the greatest and bravest in the jungle". Pec's shimmering grey head feathers slowly lowered. He shook his head, stuck his beak under his wing and looked at Lucky from the corner of his yellowish eye. "A brave adventurer, hmm? You look more like a little lion cub getting into mischief" he said as he brought his head from under his wing. “My name is Pec. What is yours?" he asked. "My name is Lucky and I don't get into mischief. Just yesterday I saved a lizard from a deep, scary crack in the ground. He could have died. I even took him home and it was a long ways away" Lucky said as proudly as he could after being squawked at by a big feathery bird. Pec's eyes twinkled at him and he opened his sharply hooked beak letting out a squeaky laugh. "I believe you, young Lucky. And, since you are so good at helping others, could you

you made it tomorrow, there was no reason crying over yesterday, you have a new chance to take something. I was planning to take

Jesus, the gospel should be all the motivation I need for living as a compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient man—especially when I consider this is how you relate to me 24/7, in full view of my ill-deserving ways. I’ll never experience you as insensitive, unkind, proud, harsh, or impatient. Indeed, through the gospel, I’ve become a member of God’s chosen, holy, dearly loved people. Yet it does take more: sometimes it takes pain. Today is just such a day. As I pray, I’m hurting big-time. Today it will be easier for me to clothe myself with compassion than with cotton. Yesterday afternoon I forgot that exercising at the gym doesn’t qualify me to be a refrigerator mover. But as I hurt, I’m moved to pray today for chronic sufferers—those who cry, “How long, O Lord?” for better reasons and with more tears than I have. Jesus, I pray for people with unrelenting pain in their bodies—those who no longer get any relief from physical therapy or medication. I pray for people with emotional and mental diseases, who live in the cruel world of delusional thinking and sabotaging emotions. I pray for their families and caregivers. I pray for the unconscionable number of children in the world who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and for their parents who feel both shame and helplessness. Lord, these and many more stories of great suffering I bring before you. I also pray for the worst chronic suffering of all: for those who are “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12 NIV). Come, Holy Spirit, come, and apply the saving benefits of Jesus to the religious and the nonreligious alike—to those who may be in the church or in the culture but who are not in Christ. Jesus, I anticipate getting over this back pain pretty soon, but I don’t want to get over compassionate praying and compassionate living. I pray in your kind and caring name. Amen.

Professionals don’t need that type of praise. My name is famous enough to get some attention from a true gladiator, but Jagdip is full of hot air. Yesterday, he cried, “You think you’re a hotshot, Spencer, but you’re not. You’re lucky my brother doesn’t fight here anymore. Ah! That’s it. I’ll have Samir teach you a lesson.” After I dismissed the challenge, he swore on his life that Samir would come to his rescue. Today

I feel like crying for the first time in many years, and there’s nobody in the room to witness it, so I give in to the urge and let the tears come freely. In the afternoon, I go back down to the chow lounge to see if Sergeant Fallon is around. I spot her in a corner by one of the projection windows, flexing her right knee and looking at her lower leg. When she sees me approaching, she smirks and raps her knuckles on her new shin, which has the dull gleam of anodized metal. “Titanium alloy,” she says as I sit down in the chair across the table from her. “Feels weird, but it’s much stronger than the old leg. Maybe I should have the other one replaced, too.” “That was fast. Didn’t they just fit you for that yesterday?” “Day before yesterday. They bumped me to the top of the spare-parts queue. I’ll have to suffer some dog-and-pony show with a few people from Army Times in return.

Waterfalls" A lonely mother gazing out of her window Staring at a son that she just can't touch If at any time he's in a jam she'll be by his side But he doesn't realize he hurts her so much But all the praying just ain't helping at all 'Cause he can't seem to keep his self out of trouble So he goes out and he makes his money the best way he knows how Another body laying cold in the gutter Listen to me [Chorus:] Don't go chasing waterfalls Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all But I think you're moving too fast Little precious has a natural obsession For temptation but he just can't see She gives him loving that his body can't handle But all he can say is "Baby, it's good to me." One day he goes and takes a glimpse in the mirror But he doesn't recognize his own face His health is fading and he doesn't know why Three letters took him to his final resting place Y'all don't hear me [Chorus (2x)] Come on I seen a rainbow yesterday But too many storms have come and gone Leavin' a trace of not one God-given ray Is it because my life is ten shades of gray I pray all ten fade away Seldom praise Him for the sunny days And like His promise is true Only my faith can undo The many chances I blew To bring my life to anew Clear blue and unconditional skies Have dried the tears from my eyes No more lonely cries My only bleedin' hope Is for the folk who can't cope With such an endurin' pain That it keeps 'em in the pourin' rain Who's to blame For tootin' 'caine into your own vein What a shame You shoot and aim for someone else's brain You claim the insane And name this day in time For fallin' prey to crime I say the system got you victim to your own mind Dreams are hopeless aspirations In hopes of comin' true Believe in yourself The rest is up to me and you [Chorus (2x)]

This verse just came to my mind yesterday while sitting in the train... ‘Pursue … overtake … and … recover all.’ 1 Samuel 30:8 When King David and his men returned home from battle, they discovered that the Amalekites had burned their homes to the ground and taken their families prisoner. They were devastated. They wept until they’d no tears left. Then God spoke to them and said, ‘Pursue … overtake … and … recover all.’ And with His help they did! So no matter how bad your situation looks right now, don’t give up. Cry if you have to, then dry your tears and go out in God’s strength and take back what the Enemy has stolen from you. If necessary, take it an inch at a time, drawing on His strength and not your own. Paul writes: ‘Let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint’ (Galatians 6:9 AMP Classic Edition). God won’t quit on you, so don’t quit on Him! He has promised in His Word: ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD your God’ (Isaiah 43:2-3 NIV 2011 Edition). Don’t give up - go through! It’s easy to quit, but it takes faith to go through. When your faith honours God, He honours your faith! And with Him on your side you’ll come out stronger than you were when you went in. So the word for you today is: ‘Pursue … overtake … and … recover all.

You always know what to do,” she said. “Not always,” he said, holding her close. “Right now, for example. I’m not sure what to do.” “Why?” she asked, her eyes still closed, her face buried in his chest. “When are you going to tell me?” She lifted her head. “Tell you?” “About the baby.” “But Jack, you know the baby and mother are—” “The baby inside of you,” he said, placing a large hand over her flat tummy. A startled look crossed her features. She pushed him away a little bit. “Did someone say something to you?” she asked. “No one had to say anything. Please tell me I’m not the last to know.” “I just saw John yesterday—and how in the world would you know?” “Mel,” he said, running the back of one knuckle along her cheek, “your body’s changing. You haven’t had a period. For a while, I thought maybe you’d had a hysterectomy or something because I haven’t noticed a period since the first time we made love, but there’s a blue box under the bathroom sink. You don’t drink your beer, and you get nauseous from time to time. Not to mention being more tired than usual.” “Lord,” she said. “You never think a man will notice. Not things like that.” “Well?” She sighed. “I went to see John yesterday to confirm what I already suspected. I’m pregnant. Three months.” “You’re a midwife. How could you not know at three weeks?” “Because I assumed I was sterile. Infertile. Mark and I did everything to try to get a baby—even in vitro fertilization. To no avail. This was the last thing I ever expected.” “Ah,” he said, finally clear on why she might keep it from him. “So, here we are,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jack. You must think I’m an idiot.” He kissed her. “Of course not. Mel, I’m in love with you.” She was frozen for a second. “Oh, God,” she finally said, plummeted into tears. “Oh, God, Jack!” She buried her face in his chest and wept. “Hey, no reason to cry, baby. You a little surprised? No more than me,” he laughed. “I never thought this could happen to me. It hit me so hard, I damn near fell down. But I love you.” She continued to softly cry. “It’s okay, honey. It’ll be okay.” He stroked her hair. “You want to have a baby, obviously.” She lifted her head. “I wanted a baby so badly, I ached. But do you?” she asked. “I mean, you’re forty.” “I want everything with you. Everything. Besides, I like babies. And I’m wild about pregnant women.” “When did you decide you knew for sure?” she asked him. “At least a month ago.” He put a hand over her breast. “Sore? Haven’t you noticed the changes? Your nipples have darkened.” “I was in denial,” she said, wiping at her tears.

Did you see the fight yesterday, when Lem Johnson didn’t want to cross the river?” Joellen nodded. “I was hiding in the supply wagon, and I watched the whole thing. You were masterful.” “If you saw what happened, you know nobody defies my orders and gets away with it. And I don’t let people tell lies about me, either.” Joellen swallowed, but she still looked besotted. Steven was about to cure her of that. He sat down on the bench, clasped Joellen by the wrist, and flung her down across his lap. She was so startled that, for a moment, she just lay there with her fanny upended. But when she looked back over her shoulder, she saw Steven’s hand descending and yelped in anticipation of the pain. His palm made a satisfying thwack, so Steven gave her another swat. Joellen squirmed and shrieked, more in anger than suffering, but he kept her legs scissored between his thighs and went right on spanking her. In the street, wagons rolled past, their occupants staring at Joellen and Steven, but he didn’t give a damn. In fact, he gave Joellen five more solid swats before letting her up. He felt guilty looking at the tear streaks on her dirty cheeks, but only a little. “Monster! Fiend! I wouldn’t marry you if you could buy and sell my daddy five times over!” Joellen screamed, her hands knotted into fists at her sides. In a few years, when she was of age, she was going to make somebody a fine and spirited wife. Steven rose from the bench and sighed as he pulled his gloves back on. “Good-bye, Joellen,” he said. Taking his wallet from the inside pocket of his leather vest, he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “This will keep you until Big John gets here.” For a moment, she looked as if she was going to spit in his face. But then, at the last second, Joellen snatched the money from his hand. “I hate you!” she cried. Steven grinned as he walked away. In six months Joellen Lenahan not only wouldn’t hate him, she wouldn’t remember his name. Wearily,

Sam whispers something to Emilio and then Emilio steps back and hitches his hip against the wall. He grins. Something is up. I just don’t know what. “So,” Sam says really loudly. Friday is holding her phone up and she has the video on. What’s going on? I glare at Sam, because apparently I’m the only one who’s not in on the joke. “What?” I ask him. Then he pulls a box from his pocket and drops down on one knee in front of me. I cover my mouth with my hand. He pops the top of the box and I see a great big diamond ring shining back at me. “So, you wanna?” he says. “Do I wanna…?” I repeat. My heart is in my throat. “Marry me, cupcake.” He stares up at me, blinking those beautiful blue eyes. “Now?” We’re about to leave. I jerk my thumb toward the airport. I can’t make any more words. He laughs and shakes his head. “Not right this second, but soon. We can make little cupcakes together. You can be my plus-one. Or it can just be me and you. But you and me is not negotiable. I kind of need you, cupcake. Have ever since I met you.” I look down at him. He adjusts his stance. “How much longer are you going to make me kneel here on my bad knee?” He grins at me. “Oh, God!” I cry. I help him up and then I hold out my hand. “P-put it on me. I w-wanna.” My hand is shaking in the air, and he takes it in his and slides the ring onto my finger. That’s when I realize it’s Emilio’s mother’s ring. I look at him and he shrugs and smiles. Then Sam picks me up and spins me around. I’m dizzy when he finally sets me down and I cling to him. Cameras snap all around us, and I bury my face in Sam’s chest. He laughs and holds me close. “You sure?” he asks me quietly, so only I can hear. “More sure than I have ever been of anything.” And I mean it. I really do. Emilio gives me one last hug. “Did you know about this?” I ask him. He shrugs. “He came to see me yesterday to ask me for permission.” “And?” “And he just asked you, didn’t he?” He chuckles. “He’s a good one.” Emilio brushes a lock of hair back from my forehead. “I wouldn’t let just anyone marry one of my daughters. Particularly not the first one I ever had.” My

It’s over between them.” “Seriously?” Jake shrugged. “She didn’t give me the details, but the ring’s gone, and she said it was over.” “Is she upset?” “Doesn’t seem to be.” That was good, right? “Hmm.” Wyatt handed him a plate. “You gonna make your move now?” Jake elbowed Wyatt in the ribs. “She just broke her engagement.” “Or he did.” Jake frowned. “I prefer to think of it the other way.” Wyatt shrugged. “Just saying. She doesn’t sound too distressed. Hey, maybe she broke up because she has the hots for you.” “Shut up.” The thought was too ludicrous to entertain. Meridith might be attracted to him, but that was a far cry from what Wyatt suggested. “It’s about the kids,” Jake said. “I’m sure of it. They spent the day together yesterday, and Max told me that Ben puked on Stephen.” Wyatt laughed. “Classic!” “Yeah, I enjoyed that little tidbit.” He was surprised the man hadn’t gone running home the day before. From what Max said, Stephen hadn’t been very friendly. They washed and dried in silence for a minute, and Jake’s thoughts turned to Meridith. She’d told him the engagement was broken so matter-of-factly. How could she love the guy and react so calmly? “You know,” Wyatt said, pulling him from his thoughts. “It’s pretty remarkable, what she’s doing. Not every chick would take on three kids at the expense of her engagement.” Wyatt was right, and it only deepened his feelings for Meridith. He hated that she was planning to take the children away, but there was no doubt she cared about them. And his suspicions about the bipolar illness had all but disappeared. He’d found no medications, seen no symptoms. “You guys would make a cute couple,” Wyatt said. “You could get married and have a ready-made family.” “You’re forgetting one little detail.” “Ah, yeah. You’re the uncle she called—what was it—self-absorbed and irresponsible?” Jake scowled and grabbed the plate from Wyatt. “So tell her the truth.” “Yeah, right. That’ll go over well.” She’d be furious. She’d kick him from Summer Place and might not let him see the kids anymore. His gut clenched. “Gotta tell her eventually.” “When the house is finished.” “The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be.” “Maybe not.” Maybe he could change her mind about staying. Maybe he could make her see that he cared for her. Maybe they really could be a family.

The next morning, I woke up to hear Becky moaning and rustling around in her bed covers. “I’m so itchy!” she cried. “So scratch!” I said, groggily, but suddenly, I felt itchy too. So, I started scratching my legs. They felt better until I stopped scratching. Then, it started to burn. I threw back the covers and saw that my legs were covered in red bumps. “My legs!” I yelled. Becky looked over at me. Then, she pulled back her covers. Her legs were even worse. She gasped. “Mom!” I cried. Mom came in. She was ready for work, wearing her dress shirt and gym shorts. She only had to dress up the top half of her body in case she had to use her webcam to talk to her boss. “What is it?” she asked. “Look!” I said, showing her our legs. “Oh no! That’s poison ivy!” she cried, “Where were you guys playing yesterday?” “The woods,” I said. “You must have been sitting in it,” she said. - The Castle Park Kids

you're the moon and the world is a lonely world; it cries at the sight of You for You are glorious and so out of reach

Two days after the German occupation, my mother called the pediatrician. "Would you come to see Gabi?" she requested. "He has been crying almost without stop since yesterday morning." "I'll come, of course," the doctor replied, "but I should tell you: all of my Jewish babies are crying.

Interstate Love Song" Waiting on a Sunday afternoon For what I've read between the lines Your lies Feeling like a hand in rusted chains So do you laugh at those who cry? Reply Leaving on a Southern train Only yesterday you lied Promises of what I seemed to be Only watched the time go by All of these things you said to me Breathing is the hardest thing to do With all I've said and all that's dead for you You lied Goodbye Leaving on a Southern train Only yesterday you lied Promises of what I seemed to be Only watched the time go by All of these things I said to you Stone Temple Pilots, Purple (1994)

Be be very lucky and thankful that your alive and well, it could be wiped away, just be happy for wake up in the morning and facing the day. I cried after nearly dying yesterday from a disease.

Yesterday morning, I felt the same way, I saw Madilyn in the corner with her hand wrapped around a ray and it pisses me off so much you have no idea. I wanted her arm wrapped around my waist, not his, or even the other way around; I don’t know what I want at this point. She was smiling and giggling about something stupid that he said like used to do with me, it makes me sick she is mine, I can stand it, him breathing on her and kissing her nick hell I thought she was gay. I am the one that wants to be nuzzled up against her. He was bending down to kiss her, and I so wanted to kick him dead in the ass hole. Payback is a b*tch, is not! She looks up and sees me, yet does she care at this point or am I dreaming yet another dream, that’s even more freaked than the last. She was looking at me with goo-goo eyes, yet kissing him, or was he kissing her? What is going on and what is going down. Then he takes my hand and drags him over to him, pushing other people out of the way, then makes both kiss him at the same freaking time- the same freaking time! What’s wrong with an asshole! Jenny was looking over our shoulder saying damn! Just what I always wanted a three-way with Ray and Madilyn in the hallway. I don’t know what is turning me on anymore. I see getaway and get off, and that is what they both said they were turning to do. And everyone in the hallway has that simple smile on their face, like- oh yeah. I search for my sunglasses in my purse to cover my crying eyes. I just said it was to keep the glare out of my eyes when I put them on. I look in the visor mirror, and I see Liv smiling at me. Like I knew she was going to cry, yet really, I wanted to see if my makeup was okay. I start to tune myself out. I don’t hear the phones going off. I can’t hear their laughter or chirpy voices. I can’t see the houses rushing by or the cars, I just close my eyes and fade away in my daydreams. Maybe I’ll tell her that I wish I was the girl I used to be, but at the same time, I know that I won’t dare. She would think I was crazy. They all would. Jenny might just say- ‘Okay if you feel that way, you can go back to flowing me around like my shadow. Go- to be with all the losers or the speed, and don’t think about coming back.’ I don’t want that either. It gets quiet, and I open my eyes, and I keep quiet, just looking out the window, as it steams up and I have to keep wiping it with my palm. The light outside is faint and soggy-looking like the sun is attempting to roll over the horizon of tree-covered hills and peeking into the valleys. The day is overcast like the sun is too lazy to get out of bed and wake itself up. The shadows are as piercing and jagged as needles. Like the shadow, I used to be wanting to be in the group of three girls following them around in awe. I watch buzzard, black crows, vultures circling the SUV like I am dead meat. It was a scary omen taunting me, from down below. I see all of the fifty or more taking off at the same time from power lines above, following me like a creepy shadow of death.

Yesterday morning, I felt the same way, I saw Madilyn in the corner with her hand wrapped around Ray and it pisses me off so much you have no idea. I wanted her arm wrapped around my waist, not his, or even the other way around; I don’t know what I want at this point. She was smiling and giggling about something stupid that he said like used to do with me, it makes me sick she is mine, I can stand it, him breathing on her and kissing her nick hell I thought she was gay. I am the one that wants to be nuzzled up against her. He was bending down to kiss her, and I so wanted to kick him dead in the ass hole. Payback is a b*tch, is not! She looks up and sees me, yet does she care at this point or am I dreaming yet another dream, that’s even more freaked than the last. She was looking at me with goo-goo eyes, yet kissing him, or was he kissing her? What is going on and what is going down. Then he takes my hand and drags him over to him, pushing other people out of the way, then makes both kiss him at the same freaking time- the same freaking time! What’s wrong with an asshole! Jenny was looking over our shoulder saying damn! Just what I always wanted a three-way with Ray and Madilyn in the hallway. I don’t know what is turning me on anymore. I see getaway and get off, and that is what they both said they were turning to do. And everyone in the hallway has that simple smile on their face, like- oh yeah. I search for my sunglasses in my purse to cover my crying eyes. I just said it was to keep the glare out of my eyes when I put them on. I look in the visor mirror, and I see Liv smiling at me. Like I knew she was going to cry, yet really, I wanted to see if my makeup was okay. I start to tune myself out. I don’t hear the phones going off. I can’t hear their laughter or chirpy voices. I can’t see the houses rushing by or the cars, I just close my eyes and fade away in my daydreams. Maybe I’ll tell her that I wish I was the girl I used to be, but at the same time, I know that I won’t dare. She would think I was crazy. They all would. Jenny might just say- ‘Okay if you feel that way, you can go back to flowing me around like my shadow. Go- to be with all the losers or the speed, and don’t think about coming back.’ I don’t want that either. It gets quiet, and I open my eyes, and I keep quiet, just looking out the window, as it steams up and I have to keep wiping it with my palm. The light outside is faint and soggy-looking like the sun is attempting to roll over the horizon of tree-covered hills and peeking into the valleys. The day is overcast like the sun is too lazy to get out of bed and wake itself up. The shadows are as piercing and jagged as needles. Like the shadow, I used to be wanting to be in the group of three girls following them around in awe. I watch buzzard, black crows, vultures circling the SUV like I am dead meat. It was a scary omen taunting me, from down below. I see all of the fifty or more taking off at the same time from power lines above, following me like a creepy shadow of death.

After an uneasy standoff lasting three days, during which time our fleets eyed each other warily across the wide bay, the tension finally snapped. I awoke to the sound of cannon- fire and was on deck just in time to see a large man- of- war bearing down on the Santo Francisco out of the dawn haze. The Chagras and the Mossem Gaspard were both struck in the early skirmishes, and the piercing cries of wounded men were soon intermingling with the sound of the guns. The catalyst for the English attack – a fleet of barracoons from upriver, laden with slaves, which arrived yesterday afternoon. It was too much to hope that the English pirates could resist such bounty.

In scores of cities all over the United States, when the Communists were simultaneously meeting at their various headquarters on New Year’s Day of 1920, Mr. Palmer’s agents and police and voluntary aides fell upon them—fell upon everybody, in fact, who was in the hall, regardless of whether he was a Communist or not (how could one tell?)—and bundled them off to jail, with or without warrant. Every conceivable bit of evidence—literature, membership lists, books, papers, pictures on the wall, everything—was seized, with or without a search warrant. On this and succeeding nights other Communists and suspected Communists were seized in their homes. Over six thousand men were arrested in all, and thrust summarily behind the bars for days or weeks—often without any chance to learn what was the explicit charge against them. At least one American citizen, not a Communist, was jailed for days through some mistake—probably a confusion of names—and barely escaped deportation. In Detroit, over a hundred men were herded into a bull-pen measuring twenty-four by thirty feet and kept there for a week under conditions which the mayor of the city called intolerable. In Hartford, while the suspects were in jail the authorities took the further precaution of arresting and incarcerating all visitors who came to see them, a friendly call being regarded as prima facie evidence of affiliation with the Communist party. Ultimately a considerable proportion of the prisoners were released for want of sufficient evidence that they were Communists. Ultimately, too, it was divulged that in the whole country-wide raid upon these dangerous men—supposedly armed to the teeth—exactly three pistols were found, and no explosives at all. But at the time the newspapers were full of reports from Mr. Palmer’s office that new evidence of a gigantic plot against the safety of the country had been unearthed; and although the steel strike was failing, the coal strike was failing, and any danger of a socialist régime, to say nothing of a revolution, was daily fading, nevertheless to the great mass of the American people the Bolshevist bogey became more terrifying than ever. Mr. Palmer was in full cry. In public statements he was reminding the twenty million owners of Liberty bonds and the nine million farm-owners and the eleven million owners of savings accounts, that the Reds proposed to take away all they had. He was distributing boilerplate propaganda to the press, containing pictures of horrid-looking Bolsheviks with bristling beards, and asking if such as these should rule over America. Politicians were quoting the suggestion of Guy Empey that the proper implements for dealing with the Reds could be “found in any hardware store,” or proclaiming, “My motto for the Reds is S. O. S.—ship or shoot. I believe we should place them all on a ship of stone, with sails of lead, and that their first stopping-place should be hell.” College graduates were calling for the dismissal of professors suspected of radicalism; school-teachers were being made to sign oaths of allegiance; business men with unorthodox political or economic ideas were learning to hold their tongues if they wanted to hold their jobs. Hysteria had reached its height.

Yesterday, a beautiful day… I was talking to [an older] woman who said that she wouldn’t want to be me for anything in the world. She wouldn’t want to live today and look ahead to what it is she sees because she’s afraid. Fear is always with us but we just don’t have time for it. Not now. HILLARY RODHAM, Wellesley commencement speech, 1969

Leaning back, she studied me, knuckles brushing along my jaw. “You’ve turned into a man overnight, it seems. Just yesterday, this face was three years old with a samurai turtle Band-Aid on your cheek.” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mom. Way more awesome than samurais.” “You’re right. Ninjas have masks and nut chucks.” Any other time I would have laughed. “Nunchakus.” “I know, but you definitely did some damage to your nuts that I think you should get checked out before you have children. I meant to tell you years ago.

Bailey sat on the edge of the couch and fed Maddy grapes. The very swollen mommy-to-be initially complained about being fed like a pet. Eventually, she gave in and enjoyed the attention. Not to be outdone, Sawyer turned a fan towards Maddy and was painting her nails. I watched them baby her and wondered about when I would be that big and uncomfortable. “I’m in no hurry to have a baby,” Tawny said, maybe for the tenth time since arriving. “Not in any hurry at all.” Farah grinned from where she was cutting carrots into little perfect sticks for dipping. “Coop is obsessed with getting me pregnant. First, his little brother is about to have a baby then his best friend. I swear whenever we’re alone, he’s inside me,” she said then her smile grew. “It’s awesome.” “Huh,” Tawny muttered. “Judd is in me all the time too and not because he’s trying to plant his flag or lay his seed or whatever.” “Jealous?” Farah asked and Tawny fake glared at her. “Sometimes, my sister irritates me too,” I said and they both laughed. “I’m going to brush the baby’s hair,” Bailey announced to no one in particular. “When she’s old enough, I’m going to put those little barrettes in her hair and make her wear headbands and turn her into a doll. Then when she cries, I’m giving her back to Maddy.” “Yeah for me,” Maddy whispered with her eyes closed. “Are you suffering?” Bailey asked. “Like should I do more for you to ease away the horror of how huge you’ve become?” Opening her eyes a crack, Maddy muttered, “Stop charming me.” Bailey grinned. “Seriously, you look pretty miserable today.” “I’ve been having those Braxton Hicks contractions since yesterday.” “Is that bad?” Sawyer asked, looking up from her meticulous work on Maddy’s toes. “Is it like hemorrhoids?” When we laughed, Sawyer beamed, even though she likely had no idea what was funny. “They’re like practice contractions,” Maddy explained. “They don’t hurt much, but they’re uncomfortable.” Bailey frowned. “How do you know all this stuff?” “I read a book.” “Yeah, I did that once. Not a fan.” “You guys don’t have to hang out here,” Maddy said. “The guys are out having fun and you’re pampering me. You could go to the movies if you want.” “No,” Bailey said quickly. “I need to be super nice because I had a dream that being nice will lead to a handsome awesome guy who is the fucker. I want that guy. He belongs to me and I’m sick of waiting, so shut up and let me be nice to you.” “Sure,” Maddy said, sighing. “This is nice, but I’m going to have to pee soon.” “Do you need me to carry you?” Bailey asked. “Maybe. Ask me in a few minutes.

When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile.

Would that I knew what others ignore, Such as has not been repeated, To say it and have my heart answer me, To inform it of my distress. Shift to it the load on my back, The matters that afflict me. Relate to it of what I suffer And sigh “Ah" with relief! of meditate on what has happened, The events that occur throughout the land: Changes take place, it is not like last year, One year is more irksome than the other. The land breaks up, is destroyed. Becomes [a wasteland]. Order is cast out, Chaos is in the council hail ; The ways of the gods are violated, Their provisions neglected. The land is in turmoil. There is mourning everywhere; Towns, districts are grieving, All alike are burdened by wrongs. One turns one’s back on dignity. The lords of silence are disturbed; As dawn comes every day. The face recoils from events. I cry out about it, My limbs are weighed down, I grieve in my heart. It is hard to keep silent about it, Another heart would bend; But a heart strong in distress: It is a comrade to its lord. Had I a heart skilled in hardship, I would take my rest upon it. Weigh it down with words of grief. Lay on it my malady! He said to his heart: Come, my heart, I speak to you. Answer me my sayings! Unravel for me what goes on in the land, Why those who shone are overthrown. I meditate on what has happened: While trouble entered in today, And turmoil will not cease tomorrow, Everyone is mute about it. The whole land is in great distress, Nobody is free from erime; Hearts are greedy. He who gave orders takes orders, And the hearts of both submit. One wakes to it every day. And the hearts do not reject it. Yesterday's condition is like today’s None is wise enough to know it, None angry enough to cry out, One wakes to suffer each day. My malady is long and heavy. The sufferer lacks strength to save himself From that which overwhelms him. It is pain to be silent to what one hears, It is futile to answer the ignorant. To reject a speech makes enmity; The heart does not accept the truth, One cannot bear a statement of fact, A man loves only his own words. Everyone builds on crookedness, Right-speaking is abandoned. I spoke to you, my heart, answer you me, A heart addressed must not be silent, Lo, servant and master fare alike, There is much that weighs upon you!

It seems as though the voice of man Will never sound in this place, But only wind from age of stone Is knocking on black gates. It seems to me that I alone Have kept good health under this sky, Because of this, that first I sought To drink the deadly wine. Parting, Evening and slanting, Downward goes my way. Yesterday in love still, "Don't forget" you prayed. Now there's only shepherds' Cry, and glancing winds, And the worried cedars Stand by clear springs.

On day three I am very excited to attend one of our special excursions for which you pay extra. We are going to get off the boat early in the morning in Bermuda, where we will be given bicycles. We will ride our bikes around the island with a guide to a special secluded beach where we can swim and have rum swizzles and then we will be taken back to the ship by a party boat. Sounds pretty good, right? That’s what I thought, too. I wouldn’t shut up about it. For weeks before we left I bragged about how I had chosen the best excursion. It was fun and fitness combined! It was a great way to see the island! My husband and I wait at the designated pickup point at 8:30 A.M. No one else shows up. A quick check of our itinerary reveals the heartbreaking truth. The bike trip was yesterday. In my excitement, I memorized it wrong. I cry. I cry like a three year old who just wants to take her toy cash register into the bathtub. I cry in a way that reveals that I’m not finding the rest of the cruise that fun. This is definitely the low point of the trip, until the fire. Oh yes, there’s a ship fire coming in this story. Wait for it.

by David M. Romano in 1993, and was called “When Tomorrow Starts Without Me.” When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through heaven’s gates I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne, He said, “This is eternity, And all I’ve promised you. Today your life on earth is past But here it starts anew. I promise no tomorrow, But today will always last, And since each day’s the same way, There’s no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Though there were times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do. But you have been forgiven And now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand And share my life with me?” So when tomorrow starts without me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart.

But when he texts at four P.M. all of that fantasy is disrupted. She wants to cry thinking of how nice it would be if he had just texted her yesterday, or even this morning. To experience the excitement and the butterflies without the goddamn panic. How nice it would be if he cared about her enough to let her shave her legs a full day in advance. He writes, What u into. He’s at the job site, telling the guys which earth to move, or he’s at a bar two miles from the site having a cold Miller, or he’s on the toilet at the bar typing on his phone. Fuck. What u into, Lina knows, means I will fuck you right now if you can get near to where I am within the allotted time. What u into. I’m free for the rest of the night. River. River, she copied. See you there. The kids are home. All the women she knows—there aren’t many—who might be able to watch the kids are busy. She knows they’re busy because she calls, texts, and Facebook messages every one of them. Her parents watched the kids just yesterday and they’ll call her a bad mom. She would take the heat but they’re not home. Eventually one woman calls Lina back. In the voice mail she’d left, Lina promised $15 an hour. That’s a high figure for the area. The woman says she can watch the children. She feels exhilarated. She found a woman, she ordered a pizza, she went to her husband’s job site and dropped the Bonneville off and picked up his car and left the Bonneville keys and is driving to the river in the Suburban. She is crazed, panicked, afraid that she won’t get there on time. A little after five P.M. he texts, Waiting. What the fuck, she thinks. What the fuck do I do. She’s afraid to say how far away she is because he will write, Better not. Better not makes her want to vomit.

On Thursday morning, that is yesterday, Mademoiselle hoped that the King would sign the contract as he had promised, but by seven in the evening His Majesty, being persuaded by the Queen, Monsieur and divers greybeards that this business was harmful to his reputation, decided to break it off, and after summoning Mademoiselle and M. de Lauzun, declared to them, in the presence of Monsieur le Prince, that he forbade their thinking any more about this marriage. M. de Lauzun received this order with all the respect, all the submissiveness, all the stoicism and all the despair that such a great fall required. As for Mademoiselle, according to her mood she burst into tears, cries, violent outbursts of grief, exaggerated lamentations, and she remained in bed all day, taking nothing but broth. So much for a beautiful dream, a fine subject for a novel or a tragedy, but above all for arguing and talking for ever and ever. And that is what we are doing day and night, evening and morning, on and on without respite. We hope you will do the same. Upon which I most humbly kiss your hands.

When she saw me she cried all the more, and I was all wet with her tears. ‘Alas,’ she said, ‘do you remember what you said yesterday? Oh what fatal prudence, oh, what prudence can do!’ Her weeping made me shed tears too. I have been back there twice. She is very distressed, and has always treated me as someone who felt her grief, and she was not mistaken. On this occasion I have been through emotions one does not often feel for people of such rank. This only between the two of us and Mme de Coulanges, for you can well imagine that this gossip would seem quite silly to other people. Good-bye.

yesterday. I know it wasn’t your fault, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face you.” “Shhh, it’s fine,” I said soothingly. “Neither of us was in any shape to talk. You did the most important things.” After a brief pause, I added, “You spoke to her?” “Mm hmm,” said Irene, the pitch of her reply rising as she tried to keep from crying. Neither of us could go on, so we sat silently for a short time, and then we stood up and brushed ourselves off. Words could come later, when they weren’t so damned hard to say. The sun was up, and I could hear the sounds of people moving around outside. Another day of hard labor was already in progress. I hadn’t lowered the shield the night before because there hadn’t been much point with everyone asleep. Plus, I had felt safer sleeping with it active. I remedied that now, testing the new links between the repaired pedestal

Yesterday on Boston Common I saw a young man on a skateboard collide with a child. The skateboarder was racing down the promenade and smashed into the child with full force. I saw this happen from a considerable distance. It happened without a sound. It happened in dead silence. The cry of the terrified child as she darted to avoid the skateboard and the scream of the child’s mother at the moment of impact were absorbed by the gray wool of the November day. The child’s body simply lifted up into the air and, in slow motion, as if in a dream, floated above the promenade, bounced twice like a rubber ball, and lay still. All of this happened in perfect silence. It was as if I were watching the tragedy through a telescope. It was as if the tragedy were happening on another planet. I have seen stars exploding in space, colossal, planet-shattering, distanced by light-years, framed in the cold glass of a telescope, utterly silent. It was like that. During the time the child was in the air, the spinning Earth carried her half a mile to the east. The motion of the Earth about the sun carried her back again forty miles westward. The drift of the solar system among the stars of the Milky Way bore her silently twenty miles toward the star Vega. The turning pinwheel of the Milky Way Galaxy carried her 300 miles in a great circle about the galactic center. After that huge flight through space she hit the ground and bounced like a rubber ball. She lifted up into the air and flew across the Galaxy and bounced on the pavement. It is a thin membrane that separates us from chaos. The child sent flying by the skateboarder bounced in slow motion and lay still. There was a long pause. Pigeons froze against the gray sky. Promenaders turned to stone. Traffic stopped on Beacon Street. The child’s body lay inert on the asphalt like a piece of crumpled newspaper. The mother’s cry was lost in the space between the stars. How are we to understand the silence of the universe? They say that certain meteorites, upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere, disintegrate with noticeable sound, but beyond the Earth’s skin of air the sky is silent. There are no voices in the burning bush of the Galaxy. The Milky Way flows across the dark shoals of the summer sky without an audible ripple. Stars blow themselves to smithereens; we hear nothing. Millions of solar systems are sucked into black holes at the centers of the galaxies; they fall like feathers. The universe fattens and swells in a Big Bang, a fireball of Creation exploding from a pinprick of infinite energy, the ultimate firecracker; there is no soundtrack. The membrane is ruptured, a child flies through the air, and the universe is silent.

Well, come on in for crying out loud. How long you gonna stand here and study this door? He ain’t in here, so you can’t will him to walk out of it.” Beau wasn’t here, either, but maybe she knew where he was. I hurried after her as she spun around and headed back inside. The bar was different at three o’clock in the afternoon. The curtains were pulled open, letting sunlight inside, and the windows were open too, allowing a fresh, cool breeze to waft through the place, almost taking away the stench of stale beer and cigarettes…almost. “He left yesterday. Ain’t been home, neither. You messed those two boys up good, girl.” Honey shook her head as she wiped glasses off and hung them back up above the bar. “I know. I need to fix it.” She shook her head and let out a hard laugh. “I reckon that would be nice, but the damage is done. Those boys about beat the shit outta each other in here yesterday. You’ve made them both crazy. Never thought I’d see a girl come between them two, but then I never figured you’d ever look Beau’s way either. Once you started showing him some interest, I knew this was all going to Hell in a handbasket real quick. You’ve always been my boy’s weakness.” I sank down onto a stool across the bar from her. My stomach churned with guilt. What had I done to Beau? How could I say I love him and hurt him so badly? Love wasn’t selfish. “I’m an awful person. I’d take it all away if I could. I can’t believe I’ve done this to him.” Honey paused and raised an artfully sculpted brow. “Him who?” “Beau,” I replied, frowning. A sad smile touched her lips and she shook her head. “Well, I guess he ain’t as stupid as I thought he was. I figured the boy’d thrown everything away for some little gal looking to have a good time. I didn’t think you’d actually care about him, too.

hear I lay watching a day comes a new how long has it been since i have seen your smiling face how long will it be till I can hold you in my arms once more it seems like just yesterday we walked side by side but in honesty it has been a lifetime since I have held your hands wily you cried to never to let you go here I am in our sleepy little town wondering when did I let go and why I can still fill your hands on my heart.

I close my eyes and say a prayer, That tonight you’ll be held. I lift you up to the spare pair Of shoulders that can’t be felled. Tonight, as you sleep, I pray your worries are wiped away. May you wake up and not weep, For joy will come in the day. Let the bridge cover your worries, Let the rain wash away the fear. Let the shoulders hold your furies. Let the sunshine bring you cheer. Shoulders holding you high. Arms shielding you from danger. May you never have to cry, On top of the mountainous glacier.

~Can You?~ In the depths of despair, I cry out. Do You see me here? In the puddles of tears, I die inside. Do You know I’m still alive? In the chair or prosecution, I am beaten. Do You see the blood on my hands? In the shadowlands of fear, I am lifeless. Do You still have faith in me? In the end of time, I fall on my face. Do You see me weeping? In the hurting eyes of others, I am heartless. Can You heal me? In the face of evil, I laugh. Can You protect me? In the church, I feel Your Presence, I’ve forgotten how to respond. Can You teach me? In the fields of battle, I long for a shot, To wake me up. Can I start again? When I look in the mirror, I see eyes, Bolted up and locked with pride. Can You soften my heart? Can You give me hope? Can You help me believe in myself? Can You?

Still looking at me, she laughed and said, “Yesterday I caught him in the back reading an old play called Outward Bound, and crying.

And that leaves romance. This genre took me a little longer than the others to realize I also didn’t qualify for a leading role. My ex-fiancé, Brett, was the first to let me in on the secret, although I missed the clues to begin with because, as I’ve established, I’d never make it as a mystery-solving sleuth. But looking back, I can see the hints along the way even before he sat me down for the big reveal. The ebbing interest in his eyes when he looked at me. The loss of touch that coincided with the loss of my hair. The tie of attraction that had at one time bound him to me unraveling, until one day it just wasn’t there anymore. At least for him. At first, I convinced myself Brett’s actions and words had nothing to do with my heroine status and everything to do with demoting him from leading man to villain. I mean, it was classic villainous behavior for him to have such a shallow depth of feeling that he was no longer attracted to me and stopped loving me when I developed alopecia, an autoimmune disease in which my T cells sound the bugle cry to attack my hair follicles like the swarm of bees that kept Winnie the Pooh from the honey in the tree (that’s probably a strange analogy, but I subbed for Martha at story time yesterday and the toddlers and preschoolers made buzzing sounds when we came to that page, so it’s still fresh in my mind).

Streets Of London" "Have you seen the old man In the closed down market Kicking up the papers With his worn out shoes? In his eyes, you see no pride Hand held loosely at his side Yesterday's paper Telling yesterday's news So, how can you tell me you're lonely And say for you that the sun don't shine? Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London Show you something to make you change your mind Have you seen the old girl Who walks the streets of London Dirt in her hair And her clothes in rags? She's no time for talking She just keeps right on walking Carrying her home In two carrier bags So, how can you tell me you're lonely And say for you that the sun don't shine? Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London Show you something to make you change your mind In the all night cafe At a quarter past eleven Same old man Sitting there on his own Looking at the world Over the rim of his tea cup Each tea lasts an hour And he wanders home alone So, how can you tell me you're lonely? Don't say for you that the sun don't shine Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London Show you something to make you change your mind Have you seen the old man Outside the seaman's mission Memory fading with The medal ribbons that he wears? In our winter city The rain cries a little pity For one more forgotten hero And a world that doesn't care So, how can you tell me you're lonely And say for you that the sun don't shine? Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London I'll show you something to make you change your mind

Until Mack finally bursts out, “What the hell is going on over there?” There’s no over there. I’m snuggled right up against him. But I know what he means anyway. “Nothing’s going on!” “Then why are you getting all upset for no reason! Are the cramps worse? Or are you sick again? Like yesterday?” It is kind of like yesterday when I was crying in the bathroom. “I’m not sick. I’m fine. I was trying to sleep. I thought you were asleep.” “Well, I was, but then I was getting hit by all these stressed vibes from you. It was very disturbing.” I sigh and give up trying to convince him of something that isn’t true. “I wasn’t really stressed. Just a bad memory. Sometimes they hit me, and I can’t push them away, and I feel it all again.” “Yeah. That happens to everyone, I think. What bad memory are you thinking about right now?” He asks the questions as if he’s absolutely certain that he has a right to the answer. I exhale deeply again. Stroke his hip. His lower back. His tight butt, completely bare as usual. “Honestly, I was thinking about when I broke up with you.” “Why were you thinking about that?” “I don’t know. Just a random, passing thought. But once it was lodged in my brain, it wouldn’t budge.” “And it upset you that much?” “Of course it upset me! It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” He’s fully awake now. He eases me onto my back and rolls over on top of me, propping himself up on his arms so he can look down at me. “It was hard for me too.” “I know it was. I felt like shit for doing that to you. And I felt like shit for not realizing the way things… things really were a lot sooner.” “No, that part is my fault. All mine. I’m the one who told you all I wanted was the casual thing. I had my own self half-convinced it was the truth. Why wouldn’t you have believed me?” “I don’t know. But I felt guilty anyway. Still do a little.

The land is for you to build your dream shelter. I’ve set up a contract with Justin’s company for the construction and a team at mine to help with operations and anything you need to make this happen.” It takes several seconds for his words to truly sink in. Even then, I stare at him open-mouthed, ensuring I’m not hallucinating. I don’t know whether to burst from joy or cry at the enormity of what he’s just offered me. I’m unable to express how I feel. He bought me a piece of land overnight. For a cause close to my heart. Because he saw me upset yesterday.

Freak, fluck, biatch, crud, darn, flippin’, shrit,” I wailed despondently, but my eyes were bone-dry because emo girls didn’t cry (I’d cried yesterday).

I’m a little sensitive. I cry over all kinds of things. Just yesterday I watched a video about baby elephants and cried.

But I still remember the darkness I saw in his eyes. Remember the saltiness of his kisses, filled with hot tears. Feel the rain on my skin like his hands on me. See him every time I close my eyes and feel him in the rain, as if he´s crying on me. Feel the pain when he kissed me. I still feel him everywhere. I remember everything like it happened yesterday. And he happened to me like it was yesterday.

None of them had seen each other since their retreat . . . you never saw such scenes of hugging. The boat sailed at 12 yesterday, the pathetic little band on board played first God Save the King for us, and then the Marseillaise & then the Spanish National anthem. Then the poor things gave three vivas for an Espana which they will never see again. I don’t think there was a single person not crying. I have never cried so much in all my life.

See Polly's stove!" cried Phronsie, wishing to entertain in her turn. "Here 'tis," running up to it, and pointing with her fat little finger. "Yes, I see," cried Jasper, pretending to be greatly surprised; "it's new, isn't it?" "Yes," said the child; "it's very all new; four yesterdays ago!" And then Polly stopped in sweeping up and related, with many additions and explanations from the others, the history of the stove, and good Dr. Fisher (upon whom they all dilated at great length), and the dreadful measles, and everything. And Jasper sympathized, and rejoiced with them to their hearts content, and altogether

How they come trooping back, those memories, undimmed by the passage of time. Was it yesterday that little Gyp went off the high bank when the river was in flood, after a crippled grouse and, all unmindful to our cries to come back, swam out into the full force of the current? Then down through the white water he went, rolling over and over, now lost to view, now emerging for a moment and still fighting valiantly. Was it yesterday that I waded into the backwash at the foot of the rapids and gathered him in my arms, half drowned but with the bird still in his mouth. No, that was not yesterday, for faithful little Gyp has been sleeping on the sunny bank below the old willow these many, many years.

don’t mean to cry in front of you.” “It’s okay. When I saw your face yesterday, I knew something was up. I’d have thought you were pregnant or your boyfriend left you or someone in your family died. But I’ve never seen you with a boyfriend and you wouldn’t be lucky enough to have someone in your family die.

When tomorrow starts without me And I'm not here to see If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me, I wish so much you wouldn't cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn't get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you'll miss me too. But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In Heaven far above, And that I'd have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I'd always thought, I didn't want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays The good ones and the bad, I thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had If I could re-live yesterday Just even for a while, I'd say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized, That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things, I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did, My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through Heaven's gates, I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne. He said, This is eternity And all I've promised you. Today your life on earth is past, But here life starts anew I promise no tomorrow, For today will always last, And since each day's the same There's no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Thought there were times you did some things You knew you shouldn't do. But you have been forgiven, and now at last You're free. So won't you come and take my hand And share my life with me? So when tomorrow starts without me, Don't think we're far apart, For every time you think of me, I'm right here, in your heart.