If We Were Villains

Which of us could say we were more sinned against than sinning? We were so easily manipulated—confusion made a masterpiece of us.

Alexander followed Meredith and declared his ability to frighten people rather proudly, but confessed the concern that he was the villain in his own life’s story.

Secrets carry weight, like lead.

It was just us – the seven of us and the trees and the sky and the lake and the moon and, of course, Shakespeare. He lived with us like an eight housemate, an older, wiser friend, perpetually out of sight but never out of mind, as if he had just left the room.

But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.

For someone who loved words as much as I did, it was amazing how often they failed me.

Our first off-book rehearsal did not go well.

One thing I'm sure Colborne will never understand is that I need language to live, like food—lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.

The things about Shakespeare is, he's so eloquent...he speaks the unspeakable. He turns grief and triumph and rapture and rage into words, into something we can understand. He renders the whole mystery of humanity comprehensible.

My own room was less overtly deficient—over the years I’d insulated myself from the rest of the house (the rest of the neighborhood, the rest of Ohio) with layers of ink and paper and poetry, like a squirrel lining a nest.

He'd never been in my house and I was self-conscious, embarrassed by it. I was painfully aware of the fact that we didn't have enough books.

I am all too aware of my own desperate need to find a message in the madness, and as it takes shape I am suspicious, afraid to hope.

One sin, I know, another doth provoke; Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke.

They were motionless. James’s fingers brushed her cheek; he turned her face up toward his and kissed her, so softly that she might not have even felt it.

The real sky was enormous overhead, making our mirrors and twinkling stage lights seem ridiculous- Man’s futile attempt to imitate God

“This is going to be a good year,” he said. “I can feel it.

James and I put each other through the kind of reckless passions Gwendolyn once talked about, joy and anger and desire and despair. After all that, was it really so strange? I am no longer baffled or amazed or embarrassed by it.

When it was his turn to speak I watched him closely, uncertain whether he was acting only, or if he and I were both gnashing secrets between our teeth.

Which of us could say we were more sinned against than sinning? We were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.

One thing I’m sure Colborne will never understand is that I need language to live, like food—lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.

What is more important, that Caesar is assassinated or that he is assassinated by his intimate friends? … That,’ Frederick said, 'is where the tragedy is.