Still, his apartment has that dreamlike qualityof feeling like home though I know it’s not. Not mine anymore — but how many people get to visit the past without hurting anything?To come back and drink the same coffeefrom the same never-quite-clean cup?

We must love one another whether or not we die.Love can’t block a bulletbut it can’t be destroyed by one either,and love is, for the most part, what makes Us Us—in Orlando and in Brooklyn and in Kabul.We will be everywhere, always;there’s nowhere else for Us, or you, to go.Anywhere you run in this world, love will be there to greet you.Around any corner, there might be two men. Kissing.

and my pack so light I’m sure I’ve left something behind—but only my worry, and only for a moment.

I do. I choose you, which is to choose him and the others and t

LeavingHe stood backlitby windows full of winter,a shade thrown over his face.What a waste, I thought.What relief.