““They Lied" They lied, my friend. They injected their despair beneath your skin like a parasitic insect laying eggs in the body of another species. Nothing they said is true, everything about you is honorable. Every pore that opens and closes—a multitude along the expanse of your body, the follicles from which hair sprouts emerging again and again like spiders’ floss spun from a limitless source. You wait, huddled. Or carry yourself from place to place like a burden. As if you would stash yourself, if you could, in a bus station locker, or somewhere smaller. You don’t really hope, but you can’t give it up completely. Some stubborn nugget is lodged like a bullet in bone. Though each breath stings with the cold suck of it, you can know the truth. Every cell of your body vibrates with its own intelligence. Every atom is pure.””