Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.

A couple of them were school beauty-queen pretty while a few were that more real-looking type. A realer kind of pretty.

Not a beauty queen. Not one of those. You know the ones. She was real.

And when we finally stood up and turned to face the world, I could feel something climbing through me. I could feel it on its hands and knees inside me, rising up, rising up - and I smiled.
I smiled, thinking, The hunger, because I knew it all too well.
The hunger.
The desire.
Then, slowly, as we walked on, I felt the beauty of it, and I could taste it, like words inside my mouth.

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

Even death has a heart.