The older you get, the harder it is to show your throat. You still feel everything. You never stop feeling everything.

You just get better at hiding the feeling––the hurt. It's almost as if you're ashamed of the hurt. Are you ashamed of the hurt?

I read somewhere that if you ever come face-to-face with a mountain lion, you're supposed to hoist your shoulders up to your ears to protect your throat, backpedal, box the sonofabitch––and pray. If you make it out alive, you will find the blades of your shoulders forever sewn to your earlobes.

Art helps break up the scar tissue.

You play your favorite songs, watch your favorite movies, read your favorite books and gaze upon your favorite paintings until you've memorized every lyric, every quote, every line and every stroke of the brush.

(It's endearing––and dare I say cute?––how we humans revisit our favorite pieces of art like we do our favorite people...)

You throw on some Nathaniel Rateliff and walk the streets of Philly at 1 a.m. with a few Sazeracs warming your lungs––and eventually you drop your shoulders and feel the cool air bite into your throat like a mountain lion or a mistress or a feeling you've struggled to recognize until now.