I Am Not Good At Noticing When

The Girls I Dream Of Are The Gentle Ones, Wistful By High Windows Or Singing Sweet Old Songs At A Piano, Long Hair Drifting, Tender As Apple Blossom. But A Girl Who Goes Into Battle Beside You And Keeps Your Back Is A Different Thing, A Thing To Make You Shiver. Think Of The First Time You Slept With Someone, Or The First Time You Fell In Love: That Blinding Explosion That Left You Cracking To The Fingertips With Electricity, Initiated And Transformed. I Tell You That Was Nothing, Nothing At All, Beside The Power Of Putting Your Lives, Simply And Daily, Into Each Other's Hands.

I Came From A House Full Of Books, So I Took Reading For Granted. I Was An Outdoorsy Little Kid, Too, So I Got The Best Of Both Worlds By Taking Books Up Trees And Reading There.

I Wanted To Tell Her That Being Loved Is A Talent Too, That It Takes As Much Guts And As Much Work As Loving; That Some People, For Whatever Reason, Never Learn The Knack

Most People Are Only Too Delighted To Wreck Each Other's Heads. And For The Tiny Minority Who Do Their Pathetic Best Not To, This World Is Going To Go Right Ahead And Make Sure They Do It Anyway.

I Used To Think I Sewed Us Together At The Edges With My Own Hands, Pulled The Stitches Tight And I Could Unpick Them Any Time I Wanted. Now I Think It Always Ran Deeper Than That And Farther, Underground; Out Of Sight And Way Beyond My Control.