This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to suddenly realize that the reason you’ve have been so lost your whole life is because a piece of you was missing and you never even knew it—only to find that missing piece and know that you can’t have it and so you will never, ever be whole?

I remember staying to look at it for a long time, as one would linger within reach of a consoling whisper. The sky was pearly grey. It was one of those overcast days so rare in the tropics, in which memories crowd upon one, memories of other shores, of other faces.

I was a fool. I should have grabbed him when I could have had him all to myself, snatched him up like a ripe mango at the market. But how was I to know that this was what love felt like?

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart.