Sleep heavily and know that I am here with you now. The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present. This now, this us? We can cope with that. We can do this together. You and I, drowsily, but comfortably.

And now a brief public service announcement. Alligators: can they kill your children? Yes.

Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won't. This is what love is.

There's a monster at the end of this book. It's the blank page where the story ends and you're left alone with yourself and your thoughts.

The present tense of regret is indecision.

Sometimes you go through things that seem huge at the time, like a mysterious glowing cloud devouring your entire community. While they're happening, they feel like the only thing that matters and you can hardly imagine that there's a world out there that might have anything else going on. And then the glow cloud moves on. And you move on. And the event is behind you. And you may find, as time passes, that you remember it less and less. Or absolutely not at all, in my case.

Perfection is not real. Perfection is not human. Carlos is not perfect- no, even better- he is imperfect. Everything about him, and us, and all of this is imperfect. And those imperfections in our reality are the seams and cracks into which our outsized love can seep and pool.

WE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.BUT HERE’S A LITTLE SECRET FOR YOU: NO ONE IS EVER THE SAME THING AGAIN AFTER ANYTHING. YOU ARE NEVER THE SAME TWICE, AND MUCH OF YOUR UNHAPPINESS COMES FROM TRYING TO PRETEND THAT YOU ARE. ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE DIFFERENT EACH DAY, AND DO SO JOYFULLY, RECOGNIZING IT FOR THE GIFT IT IS. WORK WITHIN THE DESIRES AND GOALS OF THE PERSON YOU ARE CURRENTLY, UNTIL YOU AREN’T THAT PERSON ANYMORE, AND EVERYTHING CHANGES ONCE AGAIN.

We have nothing to speak about. There never was. Words are an unnecessary trouble. Expression is time wasting away. Any communication is just a yelp in the darkness. I am speaking now but I am saying nothing. I am just making noises, and, as it happens, they are organized in words and you should not draw meaning from this.

It’s nice to have a station pet. Wish it wasn’t trapped in a hovering prison in the men’s bathroom, but listen: no pet is perfect. It becomes perfect when you learn to accept it for what it is.