Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.

Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.
Papa was an accordion!
But his bellows were all empty.
Nothing went in and nothing came out.

That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.

I like the idea that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It's probably what I love most about writing - that words can be used in a way that's like a child playing in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around.

I stood there and stared, into the sky and at the city around me. I stood, hands at my side, and I saw what had happened to me and who I was and the way things would always be for me. Truth. There was no more wishing, or wondering. I knew who I was, and what I would always do. I believed it, as my teeth touched and my eyes were overrun.

Can a person steal happiness? Or is just another internal, infernal human trick?