My Students Know I Have A Life,

I Began To Measure Things In Absence Instead Of Presence.

He Leaned Down And Whispered To Me: No Matter How Thin You Get, No Matter How Short You Cut Your Hair, It's Still Going To Be You Underneath. And He Let Go Of My Arm And Walked Back Down The Hall.

For A Long Time I Believed The Opposite Of Passion Was Death. I Was Wrong. Passion And Death Are Implicit, One In The Other. Past The Border Of A Fiery Life Lies The Netherworld. I Can Trace This Road, Which Took Me Through Places So Hot The Very Air Burned The Lungs. I Did Not Turn Back. I Pressed On, And Eventually Passed Over The Border, Beyond Which Lies A Place That Is Wordless And Cold, So Cold That It, Like Mercury, Burns A Freezing Blue Flame.

You Never Come Back, Not All The Way. Always There Is An Odd Distance Between You And The People You Love And The People You Meet, A Barrier Thin As The Glass Of A Mirror, You Never Come All The Way Out Of The Mirror; You Stand, For The Rest Of Your Life, With One Foot In This World And No One In Another, Where Everything Is Upside Down And Backward And Sad.

Were I To Put Myself On... One Of Those Online Dating Things, I Would Not Include In My Profile That I'm Regularly Hospitalized For Psychosis. But I Do Know That When I Get Really Bad, There Is A Place For Me To Go Where I Will Feel Better.