I love houses with windows that glow like lanterns on rainy nights, reminding passersby to trudge on patiently because they, too, will soon be home. The warmth within those houses makes onlookers think of bowls of hot soup and comfortable chairs and picture books they could pleasurably pore through forever, of children sleeping inside cozy bedrooms with stuffed toys exuding the smell of new velveteen, their ceilings sprinkled with yellow-green, glow-in-the-dark stars, of pet dogs dreaming their dreams under spinning dreamcatchers. Outside, from the street, those windows shine through screens of tree leaves and branches stirring like black, Spanish lace being washed by rain.

I am the man in the street, and I am also the man inside the house, but I know not which me has the heavier burden of love.