Trees down south have a difference to them, a subtle, slinking movement, mile by mile- a gracefulness, a swagger. Lanky trees stretching out their wiry thin, Spanish moss-covered branches, moss that sways and beckons... come here, come here, it says.

Last week you looked at me with love. You wanted to touch me. Last week I was happy. Now? Who are you? I don’t even recognize you.

She told us about how some people just had magic built into them. That her family firmly believed somehow, somewhere, at the very moment when the stars first erupted with a bang, stardust settled on only a few specks of life already forming in the sea. And how those few specks evolved into people who hold all sorts of unexplainable talents. When I was little I thought it was terribly romantic, being half stardust, half Southern magnolia.

I’m an old man now. Old on the inside. I’m a drunk, and I hate to tell you, but I’m not prepared to change. So you have to figure out if you want to forgive me and love me like I am, or run away again. Or hell, stay here and hate me. Just... know that I love you the best way I know how. I always have. I do the best I can.

The air between them began to settle into a silence. Awkward, yet softly exciting. Like an unexpected snow day.

The truth is, time marches on and you have two choices: You move forward, come what may, and you experience all the sour and sweet things that fly at you from around corners, or you sit still. Don't sit still.

But, small family or not, they could yell large.

We all gotta die, and we all gotta live with the things our dark sides do. People are afraid of their darkness, though. Spend their whole lives so scared of dyin' that they never get to live. Spend their whole lives pushin' down that darkness, until there ain't no light at all.

Laughter layered the walls and clung to the dust mites, making them sparkle like lightning bugs in the daytime.

When I was little, I thought it was terribly romantic, being half stardust, half Southern magnolia.