Too long spent denying each other, we no longer hid our want.

It’s the beauty that helps us return from the harshness. If it wasn’t there, we would have nothing to live for.

She remembered how her heart, so tight, like a scroll, had opened when Arin kissed her.
It had unfurled.
If her heart were truly a scroll, she could burn it.
It would become a tunnel of flame, a handful of ash.
The secrets she had written inside herself would be gone. No one would know

Lately I have come to believe that an as yet undiscovered human need and even a property of matter is the desire for revelation. The truth within us has a way of coming out despite all conscious efforts to conceal it. I have heard stories from those in the generation after the war, all speaking of the same struggle to ferret truth from the silence of their parents so that they themselves could begin to live.

Any guy, even imaginary, would just feel like second best. Second best to what? I don't even have an image of the perfect boyfriend. I just know he must exist. Because I have all these feelings-love, longing, wanting to be touched, dreaming of being kissed-yet no one to focus them on.

If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.