These days, I miss innocence--or not-knowing. I'd rather not-know that you really see the world as black/white or that you were inextricably part (and parcel, a commodity to be used and discarded) of a romance I have outgrown, regrettably.

...

Inserting an apology here seems useless and insulting. We were different people three months ago. We approached each other with such understandings that were revealed, ultimately, as misunderstandings.

Romance is like this, I'm sure; it's a potentially dangerous moment/relationship, morphing itself into a Great Game or--if the parties are willing--into something entirely new and transformative. We are, after all, contradictory and digressive.

...

Did she really mean that? I think she wants this. I want him. Why can't she understand? Who is she? He's so strange. She's illogical.

Can we survive romance?

...

Me, I'm a wobbly, newly-foaled student.

After a two-year absence, I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the absence of familiar faces, the impatience I experience towards alienating pedagogical practices, and the doubt I experience every time I speak, when silence follows.

Shush.

...

And when I refer to romance, I also mean those relationships other than strictly non-platonic ones, like those with friends, parents, places, ideas, heroes, the nation, etc.