I Hated Hurting Him. Most Of The

Sometimes The Way You Think About Someone Isn't The Way They Actually Are.

He Knew He Couldn't Tell Stories, That He Always Included Extraneous Details & Tangents That Interested Only Him.

And Then I Screwed Up And The Colonel Screwed Up And Takumi Screwed Up And She Slipped Through Our Fingers.

I Would Always Love Alaska Young, My Crooked Neighbor, With All My Crooked Heart.

We Got Off At The Next Exit, Quietly, And, Switching Drivers, We Walked In Front Of The Car. We Met And I Held Him, My Hands Balled Into Tight Fists Around His Shoulders, And He Wrapped His Short Arms Around Me And Squeezed Tight, So That I Felt The Heaves Of His Chest As We Realized Over And Over Again That We Were Still Alive. I Realized It In Waves And We Held On To Each Other Crying And I Thought, 'god We Must Look So Lame,' But It Doesn't Matter When You Have Just Now Realized, All The Time Later, That You Are Still Alive.