I want to love like my grandmother, who loved a woman like Joseph loved Mary. Someone so imperfect, so human, brave enough to love someone who already knows God.

I love the way you lit candles, with the insistence that I never look, just so I can open my eyes and find the light in the darkness.

This is how you explain how you feel: broken words and hard truths.

Growing up she had become used to allowing men the ability to curve themselves into question marks around her and hold her desperately as if she were the answer. She had become afraid to admit that she is not.

She tasted of coffee and day old poetry.

I wanted to say "don't leave me," but I'm so tired of begging people to stay.