He felt that if they both spoke without dissimulation and straight from the heart, they would only look into one another's eyes and Constantine would say nothing but, 'You will die! You will die!' and Nicholas would only say in reply: 'I know I shall die and I am afraid, afraid, afraid!' That was all they would say if only they spoke straight from the heart. But that would make life impossible; therefore Constantine tried to do what all his life he had tried and never known how to do (although he had often observed that many people were able to do it well), something without which life was impossible: he tried to say something different from what he thought; and he felt all the time that it sounded false and that his brother detected him and grew irritable."
- Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part III / Chapter XXXII
A Necessary Exorcism
"Callow & in another century, I leered at white girls &
dreamed of a future where my lips might boldly graze
upon their pretty, pale globes. Middle-aged & eating
sardines on a reservation, I re-assessed the collective der-
riere of Indian womanhood & saw a kite-like tail, its
host of ancestor ghosts fluttering far back into baying
wolf pack days. Reawakened, I made my choice so easily
& picked red drama, the joyous pain of it all & that is
why, darling, I drove six hours to silently stand with my
hot hands upon your frozen tombstone, the pitiful prai-
rie snow whimpering down."
...Adrian C. Louis, from his collection "Random Exorcisms." A writer whose work I admire a great deal, and who is probably not read / talked about as much as he should be.