But Hope Got In, No Matter How

I Was Glad When The Invalids Were Executed

Time Becomes A Stutter-the Space Between Drumbeats, Splintered Into Fragments, And Also Endlessly Long, As Long As Soaring Guitar Notes That Melt Into One Another, As Full As The Dark Mass Of Bodies Around Me. I Feel Like The Air Downstairs Has Gone To Liquid, To Sweat And Smell And Sound, And I Have Broken Apart In It. I Am Wave: I Am Pulled Into The Everything. I Am Energy And Noise And A Heartbeat Going Boom, Boom, Boom, Echoing The Drums.

And This, Really, Is The Story-within-the-story, Because If You Do Not Believe That Hearts Can Bloom Suddenly Bigger, And That Love Can Open Like A Flower Out Of Even The Hardest Places, Then I Am Afraid That For You The World Will Be Long And Brown And Barren, And You Will Have Trouble Finding The Light. But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

This Is What I Want. This Is The Only Thing I've Ever Wanted. Everything Else—every Single Second Of Every Single Day That Has Come Before This Very Moment, This Kiss—has Meant Nothing.

I Have Had To Give Up So Much, So Many Selves And Lives Already. I Have Grown Up And Out Of The Rubble Of My Old Lives, Of Things And People I Have Cared For.