The English Language On Her Tongue Became

Love Had Always Issued Out Of The Places That Hurt The Most.

Writing Is The Only Way I Have To Explain My Own Life To Myself.

American Men Are Allotted Just As Many Tears As American Women. But Because We Are Forbidden To Shed Them, We Die Long Before Women Do, With Our Hearts Exploding Or Our Blood Pressure Rising Or Our Livers Eaten Away By Alcohol Because That Lake Of Grief Inside Us Has No Outlet. We, Men, Die Because Our Faces Were Not Watered Enough.

I Wanted To Become The Seeker, The Aroused And Passionate Explorer, And It Was Better To Go At It Knowing Nothing At All, Always Choosing The Unmarked Bottle, Always Choosing Your Own Unproven Method, Armed With Nothing But Faith And A Belief In Astonishment.

To Describe Our Growing Up In The Lowcountry Of South Carolina, I Would Have To Take You To The Marsh On A Spring Day, Flush The Great Blue Heron From Its Silent Occupation, Scatter Marsh Hens As We Sink To Our Knees In Mud, Open An Oyster With A Pocketknife And Feed It To You From The Shell And Say, 'there. That Taste. That's The Taste Of My Childhood.'