The Incendiaries

by R.O. Kwon

If I could be anyone, I’d ask to be the Will rushing to see more, again, of Phoebe.

the fall wind smelled of reasons to live.

If you love to win, as I did, it’s not enough to do well. Others also have to fail.

I had the blood taste of public triumph on my lips.

By the time I quit, I realized I’d rather have no talent than just enough to know how much I lacked.

To covet is to begin to have.

I ate pain. I swilled tears. If I could take enough in, I’d have no space left to fit my own.

I liked how he looked at me, as if he couldn’t help it.

People with no experience of God tend to think that leaving the faith would be a liberation, a flight from guilt, rules, but what I couldn’t forget was the joy I’d known, loving Him.