Somewhere between the fact we know and the anxiety we feel is the reality we live. — MAMIE ELIZABETH TILL-MOBLEY - Saeed Jones

I hungered for the power of the all-American man, the Marlboro Man and the Marlboro Man's firstborn son, the high-school quarterback, the company's future CEO, Ernest Hemingway, John Wayne, Odysseus, Hercules, Achilles, the shield itself, the stone-cut archetype, the goddamned Everyman, the golden boy, the one.

They die bright, fantastic deaths every chance they get.

In that way we were both just like each other. We both allowed too deep of a contrast between our interiors and our exteriors. We both clung to self-assured masks that actually allowed us to cause ourselves more unseen harm.