“What I saw was a beauty so tremendous, it had every bone in my exoskeleton shaking.”

“In the bath, in the sea, I imagined my body independent of another, only mine from the beginning until the end. I imagined floating along forever with my own weight and nothing more.”

“Now, everything refused to bloom, afraid of the pungent smoke and fires. The trees’ leaves departed with the wind, leaving them naked and silent.”

“How very sad, Martha thinks, around the sound of her embarrassment, which bleats louder than the braised lamb shank currently resting next to her husband’s potatoes probably did, in the minutes right before it became a shank, later braised, while it was still just a lamb.”

“The apartment itself contained all the colors of the off-white rainbow: egg shell, dusty beige, and dirty vanilla.”

“The girl devoured salt like rice, by the cluster, and it was even sweeter when her mother wasn’t looking.”

“They didn’t tell us that we were walking around with mirrors, each patient skewed to reflect a part of ourselves we couldn’t ignore.”

“He looked directly at me for the first time, and I saw those same flecks of hazel in his irises that had once made me think of sunlight peeking through the redwood trees nearby my childhood home. Now, they were just colors that were a part of his eyes.”

“There was still dancing and singing and sledding and eating and laughing, of course, but not officially. Officially, everything was muted.”

“I had the fleeting thought that as some people live on books or good spirits, I could live on the happy crinkles of your eyes.” 

“So what can you do? Wait as the sad burns the color red into you, against your consent. Who said anything about blue? Red. Sad is red and hot skin, dry skin, peeling skin.”

“‘Dammit Eelis, look around you. After so many years of destitution we’ve made our riches; God has alas given us our proper destiny with this whale.’”

“And forgive me if on your list of Happy Birthday messages you get part of my shopping list.”

“I know in his mind he repeats ‘The cavemen didn’t say, I love you.’ And it's ok, it's not something I need to hear.”