“In that moment, he looked just like a boy to Irma. Head tilted down, palm turned out and facing her. She wanted to scoop his head between her hands.”

“It's hot here. I don't get high anymore; I don't need to. The perpetual heat and the laziness do about the same; out here every afternoon on the tower, feet dangled over the edge, in the haze, and that column of smoke out there in the distance, that's Perú already.”

“By noon, we knew the sun was through with us  
and our small adventure. Even the bloodwort,  
the tall red ferns, and the L-O-V-E scored  
in black paint below the overpass could tell  
we knew nothing of them.”

“What happens when you narrativize something that has that initiatory burden of transness, you take these steps to bring that narrative into actuality—to bring the inside outside.”

“She walks into McDonald’s at 1:00 p.m. She carries two duffel bags and an empty coffee cup as if hoping for a refill. No one knows why, but she comes every day like clockwork.”

“His compositions reinvented classical music, perhaps because he no longer could hear what others were creating.”