The myth we make of ourselves, out of my story, her story, calling it us, but that’s everybody’s lie.

Jealous of the past, of the time we had together yesterday.

The only thing more complete than this moment will be the loss of it, as memory repudiates everything. But why complain, when even the complaint will be forgotten?

Using fantasy to spice things up — but the real pretending is to imagine we’re these separate bodies, joined for a moment by our passion, then separate again.

I can leave the bed, or the sentence, unmade: no secrets from myself.

Her yes yes yes, her small no.

Yesterday, she said, she committed a man in his seventies who was threatening to kill his wife. He was certain she was fucking a man half her age.

The love of the city for its dark streets, its abandoned hearts. Longing as love’s address, as long as love dwells in the body.

D.H. Lawrence: “Never, my young men, you who complain you know no joy in your lives, never will you know any joy in your lives till you ask for lightning instead of love, till you pray to the right gods for the thunderbolt instead of pity.”

I unlocked the door so love would come in, but love knocked at the window. I unlocked the window, but all I saw were stars.

These words a mirror in which I see myself reflected and distorted. Is a distorted memory better than none at all? “The palest ink,” said a Chinese sage, “is mightier than the strongest memory.”

He asked when I fell in love with her. I said, “The first time I saw her cry.” He asked, “How did that remind you of your mother?” and I cried.