In My Head There's A Broken Balcony

All Those Years On The Psychiatrist's Couch And Suddenly The Couch Is Moving. Good God, She Is On That Couch When The Big One Hits. Maidy Didn't Tell You, But You Know What Her Doctor Said? She Sprang From The Couch And Said, "my God, Was That An Earthquake?" The Doctor Said This: "did It Feel Like An Earthquake To You?

The Only Time The Word Baby Doesn't Scare Me Is The Time That It Should, When It Is What A Man Calls Me.

It Was Like That Class At School Where The Teacher Talks About Realization, About How You Could Realize Something Big In A Commonplace Thing. The Example He Gave--and The Liar Said It Really Happened--was That Once While Drinking Orange Juice, He'd Realized He Would Be Dead Someday. He Wondered If We, His Students, Had Had Similar 'realizations.' Is He Kidding? I Thought. Once I Cashed A Paycheck And I Realized It Wasn't Enough. Once I Had Food Poisoning, And Realized I Was Trapped Inside My Body.

I Know When A Story Is Finished When There Is Not A Single Thing More I Can Think To Do To It. And Since I Know At The Start What The Last Line Will Be, I Know When I've Reached That Point As Logically As I Can That It's Finished. As For The Rewriting-it's Not Foolproof, Of Course, But If You're Honest About Having Thought Of Every Possibility And You Still Come Back To What You Have, What More Can You Do?

I Had A Mother I Could Only Seem To Please With Verbal Accomplishments Of Some Sort Or Another. She Read Constantly, So I Read Constantly. If I Used Words That Might Have Seemed Surprising At A Young Age, She Would Recognize That And It Would Please Her.