“A collection of thoughts bundled together and bound in twine – more toxic than any chemical, my very own poison.”

In the end it’s all the same – the hearty fire or the damp earth. I pray I’m not alone.

I feel like I’m on fire, fighting for a moment on respite – I’m not placing bets.

I read that good things take time – but one look at him, and I knew I could never love someone more.

The bond of friendship as tight as any lover – where shoulders carry shared burden, a devotion unmatched by any other.

What use is sleep, when reality is more beautiful than my dreams could ever muster?

You are a mirage – never mine to hold. A glimering promise so tempting to chase, eternally out of reach.

My throat burns with the words left unspoken, air hangs still and silence hides the words you long to hear – stay.

A full glass for an empty heart – the temporary bandage for a fatal would.

The smell of oak reminds me of summers spent sleeping under canvas, crackling fires and roasted coffee, the soft sound of guitar and voices in unison.

I sit by the sea wall, willing the waves to stay. Pulling away with gentle abandon – they avenge me for doing the same.

And in the end-you didn’t deserve my thoughts or my ink.

Her body may lay on your sheets, but my name sits softly on your lips.

The leaves know when to let go – if only I had the same instinct.

Painting over cracks as you watch the ceiling fall – not everything can be healed with love.

Don’t waste your words on me, your face speaks in volumes that your breath could never reach.

A dishonor greater than any affair, is that of a friend who never was.

We must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence into the unknown, beyond where all paths end, to that place where we go innocently or not at all, not once but continually.

When people throw stones at you, don’t throw them back. Collect them all and build an empire.

Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else.

The fact is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century

Are stories a heeded warning, or merely an entertainment? Each story in the collection tries to wrestle with these questions.

The larger the mass of collected things, the less will be their usefulness. Therefore, one should not only strive to assemble new goods from everywhere, but one must endeavor to put in the right order those that one already possesses.

And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.

A beautiful literary collection that tells of today’s country doctor, somewhat removed from our romantic black-bag image of days gone by, but still fulfilling an essential need in caring for spread-out populations.