Benjamin Alire Sáenz

So I renamed myself Ari.

If I switched the letter, my name was Air.

I thought it might be a great thing to be the air.

I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.

I liked hearing him laugh. It made things seem normal. A part of me thought things would never be normal again.

“Your smile is back.” That’s what Dante said.

“Smiles are like that. They come and go.”

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn’t get—and never would get.

“Someday, I’m going to discover all the secrets of the universe.”

“Because when you do something, you have to know exactly what you’re doing.”

“No one knows exactly what they’re doing,” I said.

Dante became one more mystery in a universe full of mysteries

The world is a dark place. Conrad’s right about that.”

“Maybe your world, Ari, but not mine.”

But for some reason the whole thing fascinated me, how you could get a heart to start again

He seemed like a man who was in love with being alive.