She was ironically beautiful, like a gasoline rainbow. I have found this to be the truest truth: beauty comes in all forms, but the kind of beauty that changes you somewhere inside always comes in the shape of a gasoline rainbow. The kind of rainbow you see in a gas station at two o’clock in the morning with your heart weighed heavy with secrets and loss and your soul burdened with regret. The kind of rainbow that smells...

I have a weakness for pretty girls named Isabel. Not Isabelle, with two l’s slashing through words like paper cuts, nor Isabella, who’s softer sound makes me think of meek and doe-eyed children. Isadora is acceptable, but not preferable. Isabel is the perfect blend of all of these, a gentle tongue-caressing name that swirls around my mouth like pink candy, leaving the taste of sweet sugar on my lips and the scent of child...

I am the way the story ends. I am the blackness before dawn and the midnight rage of sleepless dreamers. I am the bleeding soul and the homeless god and the condemning of an angel. I am a virtuous sinner, a story without words, the blood on the pavement, the razor blade in the bathtub, hatred without reason and love with logic; I am. I am the words of a poem they forgot to write and the ink of a run-dry pen and the apolog...