Don’t fall in love or let anyone’s life become more important than your own.

My father insisted I eat red meat. ‘You’ll lose your brain without food,’ he said. A meal to him without beef was starvation.

I lit a cigarette. ‘Go ahead, take a smoke,’ my father said. ‘It won’t kill you. Only sadness will.

You and I, your mother, Ahlam, we are from up there,′ my father continued. ‘We come from the stunning stars. We were just born in the wrong place. We were meant to live on another planet. The people who come to the desert are those who know this, deep inside of them, we are from up there. From far, far away.

One day you look in the mirror and you see your parents’ sadness in your eyes.

We remained talking, fighting gently or viciously for what seemed like hours, but it was only minutes or perhaps a second, because it was only a dream.

The earth spins further from help. Beyond us the heart monitors go on, the fluorescent lights buzz, the commentators shout, the casino leaves fall into the desert, sirens blare. But all we hear is the rain.

What if we love the black hole in the center of all things? What if we are people like that? People who love to be cursed?

My loves have always been seared with this singing, this singing written by death, the way some lands have always been crippled by war.

He could guide anyone to the point of no return. He'd corral them with poetry, music, invoking the alcoholic gods that all died young. But we were so young, we didn't know we had anything we would miss.