these short, rich glimpses of various lives read like pieces of the same monologue, one that tells the stories of the hidden and unwanted, the savvy and fearless, the lost and forlorn and hopeful. the only downside, aside from some possible triggers, is that these are too short -- i want to know more about these people, i want to hear them talking to me with their own voices. maybe the abruptness of only two or three pages doesn't suit my current mood. still, from the diaries of a wolf boy was my favorite piece precisely because it stuck around long enough for me to explore all of its corners. and it included some of the most striking writing of the whole heavy pile of beautifully striking writing.

"Death was a smudge in the distance. I don't know exactly what I mean by that but lying down inside this cradle of arms in my head was sometimes all I wanted ... I'm lost in a world that's left all its mythologies behind in the onward crush of wars and civilization, my body traveling independent of brushes with life and death, no longer knowing what either means anymore. I'm so tired of feeling weary and alien, even my dreams look stupid to me."

is it more heartbreaking because wojnarowicz died way too young, kicking and fighting against the forces who tried to tell him, until the very last, that he was sick and wrong? maybe. it's hard to separate the reality of his life from the words and images that came out of it, and i'm not so sure we should try. these things stand together, but they also stand on their own. but i can't help, whenever i read his stuff, mourning the words he could have written. ( )