Toby Barlow

he knows that it's impossible to tell a wolffrom a man ifhe keeps his chin upand his teeth clean.

He was high up now, gazing across to where Montmartre itself gazed out over the city. He was swept along in the wind, admiring the twin steeples of Notre-Dame as he passed, along with the dogged, devilish gargoyles of St. Jacques.

Knowing someone isn't coming backdoesn't mean you ever stop waiting

He said, You know, whoever hurt youdies every time they look in the mirror.That is how they pay."She crossed her arms."And one day, Maria, you will die too,but there's no reason for you to dieevery day.

How old are you?""Ah that is a good one. I do not know.""Before cars?""Before trains, before guns. Before people stole the curves from the high clouds and the angles from the flying flocks to build all their little alphabets.

She killed her sons first. Hammering a long fence nail through each of their hearts. Then, taking an ax, she methodically beheaded each one of her brothers-in-law. Going out to the pens, she drove the livestock into the barn, bolting it shut, and while the goat kids and spring lambs panicked and brayed, she put all the buildings to flame.

Men have dragged us by our hair through the ages, and whether they give us crumbs or bright, shiny rocks, they truly give us nothing at all. If you have not opened your legs for them so that they could drawl out as babies or crawl in as men, they they will leave you to starve like a dog on the street. So now we are done playing the way they want us to play. Now we are moving to music they cannot hear, to a rhythm they cannot understand. They call it madness and we call it truth and find me the magistrate you can trust to judge between the two? Bah. So we dance on, we dance on.

The secret must stay and- according to scientists- the love will live. The heart is quite comfortable with secrets. After all, its home is a dark wet place tucked in among all the other organs who aren't talking either.