"When you reach a certain age, you realize the things that crushed you then don’t crush you now: the loneliness of a Friday night alone at home, someone telling you they don’t love you any more, souring the promise of something old or souring something new. You understand the tendency of self-defeat exists only as long as you want it to so you can excuse yourself when you curl up in the back of a friend’s van and whisper that yes, boys do cry, and you write a poem about it when you get home and you never read it to the person that showed you proof in the mirror that boys do cry."
