If I could make my thoughts solid, a shrine they'd form, a perfect likeness of you down to the smallest pore. I won't need to remember that old saw about removing everything that isn't the finished product. My veins hum with instinct and they know what to …

I too have earned peace. I have fought for it with my fingernails in my arms, with tears, with broken, jagged pieces of myself, pieces I have torn off of my own, living, breathing, bleeding body and thrown at all those who would challenge my claim. I have run through …