Tiffany McDaniel

People always ask, Why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we__l do. He__ stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering__ biggest spectator.

That is the tragedy of losing an older brother. He stays still. You keep on and one day become the older one._It's unnatural, that_reversal. It's the thing that keeps the family from ever being whole again.

YOU WERE MY FAVORITE THING AND IN IMAGINATION YOUR DEATH WILL NOT EXIST IT IS ALL 'AS IF' FROM NOW ONAS IF YOU ARE NOT GONEYOU WILL BE THE GIRL BESIDE MENEVER MORE THAN A HEARTBEAT LENGTH AWAYTHE WOMAN WHO WILL BE THE HILL OF MY BED A CLIMB TO THE TOPAND SUCH VIEWS TO MAKE LITTLE THINGS OFLITTLE US THAT WILL BE PART YOU AND PART MEAND WHOLE IN THOSE TWO THINGSAS IF YOU ARE NOT GONE AND WILL BE WITH ME TO GET THE WRINKLES THE WHITE HAIRTHE SPINE SHAPED LIKE A ROCKING CHAIRAS IF YOU ARE NOT GONE AND SO WILL HAVE THE LOVE OF GOING IN MY ARMSWARM AND WITH MEYES, YOU ARE MY FAVORITE THINGYOU ALWAYS WILL BE.

Pain is our most intimate encounter. It lives on the very inside of us, touching everything that makes us. It claims your bones, it masters your muscles, it reels in your strength, and you never see it again. The artistry of pain is its content. The horror of it is the same.

As we walked home, I knew from far away the trees would've looked nice, the grass would've looked green, and we would've looked like just a couple of boys walking home, armed with Midwest love and Bible Belt morals.But up close, the trees were scorched, the grass was dead, and the boys were on the verge of tears with the belts of those morals tightening around their necks, threatening to hang them if they dared step off the stool of masculinity.

Don't you wanna_be a_great baseball player?_ He sighed back into the wall. __ want to be a great man, Fielding._ And so we stand, proved of our existence by those who see us. And how did I see Grand, how_did_any of us, but as the one who would be great at this and that, as long as it was baseball and girls. He always had to be what we wanted him to be first._He existed only by proxy_to our dreams of_him.

No one ever said you__e got to prepare to be hated. You__e got to prepare for the yelling and the anger. You have got to prepare how to survive being the guilty one, even in innocence.