This is the first sentence ....

.... of a short story called 'Rayme'
which is in a book of short stories
by Jayne Anne Phillips

This story is for me like nothing else.

When I think of it, or see on the shelf
the book it is in (like I did tonight),
it is like thinking of, or seeing in the distance,
someone I am in love with. It compares to no
other piece of writing I have ever read
or ever now expect to. I feel it
in the beating of the blood in my veins
and it seems that the rhythms of its words
and sentences have, since 1987 when I
first read it, changed how I think,
changed how my brain works,
and sometimes when I begin that first
line I think my heart might stop.

I have no idea why I love this story so much