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Are You Sure You Can't Dematerialize? Not Even A Little?" "i'm Sure.

-Lauren Oliver

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Are You Sure You

Lauren Oliver

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Are You Sure You Can't Dematerialize? Not Even A Little?" "i'm Sure.

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Maybe Before You Die, It's Your Ghosts You See.

My Heart Is Fluid And Soaring. There's No Longer Any Space Between Heartbeats.

Alex Loved Books. He Was The One Who First Introduced Me To Poetry. That's Another Reason I Can't Read Anymore.

Everywhere He Touches Is Fire. My Whole Body Is Burning Up, The Two Of Us Becoming Twin Points Of The Same Bright White Flame.

For A Split Second, He Had Looked Almost Like My Alex Again.

It's Surprisingly Nice Out Here, Peaceful And Pretty-strange To Be Standing In The Middle Of A Little Garden While Enclosed By The Massive Stone Walls Of The Prison, Like Being At The Exact Center Of A Hurricane, And Finding Peace And Silence In The Middle Of So Much Shrieking Damage.

No Wonder The Regulators Decided On Segregation Of Boys And Girls: Otherwise, It Would Have Been A Nightmare, This Feeling Angry And Self-conscious And Confused And Annoyed All The Time.

And I Guess That's When It Starts To Hit Me: The Whole Point Is, You Do What You Can.

If You Cross A Line And Nothing Happens, The Line Loses Meaning.

Quiet Through The Grave Go I; Or Else Beneath The Graves I Lie

There Are No Happy Endings, Only Breaks In The Regular Action.

It's Funny, Isn't It? When You Are Young You Just Want To Be Old, And Then Later You Wish You Could Go Back To Being A Kid.

You Have To Understand. I Am No One Special. I Am Just A Single Girl. I Am Five Feet Two Inches Tall And I Am In-between In Every Way. But I Have A Secret. You Can Build Walls All The Way To The Sky And I Will Find A Way To Fly Above Them. You Can Try To Pin Me Down With A Hundred Thousand Arms, But I Will Find A Way To Resist.

And I Have Julian. I Found Him, And He Followed Me. I Reach Out In The Half Dark, Wordlessly, And Find His Hands. We Interlace Our Fingers, And Though He Doesn't Say Anything Either, I Can Feel The Warmth And Energy Passing Between Us, A Soundless Dialogue. Thank You, He Is Saying, And I Am Saying, I Am So Happy, I Am So Happy, I Needed You To Be Safe.

He Who Leaps For The Sky May Fall, It's True. But He May Also Fly.

Live Free Or Die.

That's The Way I Feel, At Least: Like There's A Real Me And A Reflection Of Me, And I Have No Way Of Telling Which Is Which.

This Is What Amazes Me: That People Are New Every Day. That They Are Never The Same. You Must Always Invent Them, And They Must Always Invent Themselves, Too.

Nobody Ever Said Life Was Fair.

That's When You Really Lose People, You Know.when The Pain Passes.

It's The Rule Of The Wilds. You Must Be Bigger, And Stronger, And Tougher. A Coldness Radiates Through Me, A Solid Wall That Is Growing, Piece By Piece, In My Chest. He Doesn't Love Me. He Never Loved Me. It Was All A Lie. "the Old Lena Is Dead." I Say, And Then Push Past Him. Each Step Is More Difficult Than The Last; The Heaviness Fills Me And Turns My Limbs To Stone. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

I Wonder Whether She Was Sorry For Leaving Us Behind.

Raven Has Lost Deeply, Again And Again, And She, Too, Has Buried Herself. There Are Pieces Of Her Scattered All Over. Her Heart Is Nestled Next To A Small Set Of Bones Buried Beside A Frozen River, Which Will Emerge With The Spring Thaw, A Skeleton Ship Rising Out Of The Water”.

What Is Beauty? Beauty Is No More Than A Trick; A Delusion; The Influence Of Excited Particles And Electrons Colliding In Your Eyes, Jostling In Your Brain Like A Bunch Of Overeager School Children, About To Be Released On Break. Will You Let Yourself Be Deluded? Will You Let Yourself Be Decieved? -"on Beauty And Falsehood," The New Philosophy, By Ellen Dorpshire

I Guess That’s Just Part Of Loving People: You Have To Give Things Up. Sometimes You Even Have To Give Them Up.

What I Meant Was, You Looked Happier In The Pictures.

Feelings Aren't Forever. Time Waits For No One, But Progress Waits For Man To Enact It.

Snapshots, Moments, Mere Seconds: As Fragile And Beautiful And Hopeless As A Single Butterfly, Flapping On Against A Gathering Wind.

I Start To Follow Her, And Alex Grabs My Hand. "i'll Find You," He Says, Watching Me With The Eyes I Remember. "i Won't Let You Go Again." I Don't Trust Myself To Speak. Instead I Nod, Hoping That He Understands Me. He Squeezes My Hand. "go," He Says.

Running Is A Mental Sport, More Than Anything Else. You're Only As Good As Your Training, And Your Training Is Only As Good As Your Thinking.

I'd Rather Die On My Own Terms Than Live On Theirs. I'd Rather Die Loving Alex Than Live Without Him.

But It's Not About Knowing. It Is Simply About Going Forward.

No Guy In His Right Mind Would Ever Choose Me When There Are People Like Hana In The World: It Would Be Like Settling For A Stale Cookie When What You Really Want Is A Big Bowl Of Ice Cream, Whipped Cream And Cherries And Chocolate Sprinkles Included.

The Sun Has Just Risen, Weak And Watery-looking, Like It Had Just Spilled Itself Over The Horizon And Is Too Lazy To Clean Itself Up.

But Now I Give In, Let The Anger Surge. I'm Sick Of People Acting Like This World, This Other World Is The Normal One, While I'm The Freak. It's Not Fair; Like All The Rules Have Suddenly Changed And Somebody Forgot To Tell Me.

Two Weeks Until Your Cure" She Says Finally. "sixteen Days" I Say, But In My Head I'm Counting: Seven Days. Seven Days Until I'm Free And Away From All These People And Their Sliding Superficial Lives Brushing Past One Another Gliding, Gliding, Gliding From Life To Death. For Them There's Hardly A Change Between The Two.

The First Time I Saw You, At The Governor, I Handn't Been To Watch The Birds At The Border In Years. But That's What You Reminded Me Of. You Were Jumping Up, And You Were Yelling Something, And Your Hair Was Coming Loose From Your Ponytail, And You Were So Fast..." He Shakes His Head. "just A Flash, And Then You Were Gone, Exactly Like A Bird.

You Can't Be Happy Unless You're Unhappy Sometimes".

Is It Possible To Tell The Truth In A Society Of Lies? Or Must You Always, Of Necessity, Become A Liar?

Telling The Truth

The Salt Blowing Off The Sea Makes The Air Feel Textured And Heavy.

Droplets, Droplets: We Are All Identical Drips And Drops Of People, Hovering, Waiting To Be Tipped, Waiting For Someone To Show Us The Way, To Pour Us Down A Path. ... He Has Tipped Us Over, All Of Us In Our Teetering Expectancy, And Now We Are Pouring Toward Him, Coursing On A Wave Of Sound, Of Roaring Shouts And Applause. ... They Are The Moon; We Are A Tide, Their Tide, And Under Their Direction We Will Wipe Clean All The Sickness And Blight From The World.

This Is The World We Live In, A World Of Safety And Happiness And Order, A World Without Love. A World Where Children Crack Their Heads On Stone Fireplaces And Nearly Gnaw Off Their Tongues And The Parents Are Concerned. Not Heartbroken, Frantic, Desperate. Concerned, As They Are When You Fail Mathematics, As They Are When They Are Late To Pay Their Taxes.

If He Were Less Well Trained, And Less Careful, He Would Say Hate. But He Can’t Say It; It Is Too Close To Passion, And Passion Is Too Close To Love, And Love Is Amor Deliria Nervosa, The Deadliest Of All Deadly Things: It Is The Reason For The Games Of Pretend, For The Secret Selves, For The Spasms In The Throat.

It Amazes Me How Easy It Is For Things To Change, How Easy It Is To Start Off Down The Same Road You Always Take And Wind Up Somewhere New. Just One False Step, One Pause, One Detour, And You End Up With New Friends Or A Bad Reputation Or A Boyfriend Or A Breakup. It's Never Occurred To Me Before; I've Never Been Able To See It. And It Makes Me Feel, Weirdly, Like Maybe All Of These Different Possibilities Exist At The Same Time, Like Each Moment We Live Has A Thousand Other Moments Layered Underneath It That Look Different.

Maybe Next Time, But Probably Not.

Maybe Next Time

Alex Is Dead, Do You Hear Me? All Of That-what We Felt, What It Meant- That's Done Now, Okay? Buried. Blown Away.

I'll Find You," He Says, Watching Me With The Eyes I Remember. "i Won't Let You Go Again

Time Becomes A Stutter-the Space Between Drumbeats, Splintered Into Fragments, And Also Endlessly Long, As Long As Soaring Guitar Notes That Melt Into One Another, As Full As The Dark Mass Of Bodies Around Me. I Feel Like The Air Downstairs Has Gone To Liquid, To Sweat And Smell And Sound, And I Have Broken Apart In It. I Am Wave: I Am Pulled Into The Everything. I Am Energy And Noise And A Heartbeat Going Boom, Boom, Boom, Echoing The Drums.

It's Like There's A Filter Set Up In My Brain, Except Instead Of Making Things Better, It Twists Everything Around So What Comes Out Of My Mouth Is Totally Wrong, Totally Different From What I Was Thinking.

Eventually She Came. She Appeared Suddenly, Exactly Like She'd Done That Day- She Stepped Into The Sunshine, She Jumped, She Laughed And Threw Her Head Back, So Her Long Ponytail Nearly Grazed The Waistband Of Her Jeans. After That, I Couldn't Think About Anything Else. The Mole On The Inside Of Her Right Elbow, Like A Dark Blot Of Ink. The Way She Ripped Her Nails To Shreds When She Was Nervous. Her Eyes, Deep As A Promise. Her Stomach, Pale And Soft And Gorgeous, And The Tiny Dark Cavity Of Her Belly Button. I Nearly Went Crazy.

I’m Sorry For Everything.” Then He Turns And Pushes Back Into The Woods, And He’s Gone.

But...books Are So Much More. Some Of Them Are Webs; You Can Feel Your Way Along Their Threads, But Just Barely, Into Strange And Dark Corners. Some Of Them Are Balloons Bobbing Up Through The Sky: Totally Self-contained, And Unreachable, But Beautiful To Watch. And Some Of Them―the Best Ones―are Doors.

Because I Think You're Right. You Can Make A Difference." He Told Me Experiences Were Kind Of Like Fate, And Fate Usually Came In The Form Of A Test. He Told Me Fate Liked To Be Worshiped. It Liked To See Us Fall On Out Knees Before It Offered To Help Us Up..." ♥

I’ve Been Trying So Hard Not To Think His Name, Not To Even Breathe The Idea Of Him

I Didn't Even Know A Heart Could Beat So Loudly...it Reminds Me Of An Edgar Allen Poe Story We Had To Read In One Of Our...classes...it's Supposed To Be A Story About Guilt And The Dangers Of Civil Disobedience, But When I First Read It I Thought It Seemed Kind Of Lame And Melodramatic. Now I Get It, Though. Poe Must Have Snuck Out A Lot When He Was Young.

The Secret Is,” I Say, Whispering Right Into His Ear, “that Yours Was The Best Kiss I’ve Ever Had In My Life.” “but I’ve Never Kissed You,” He Whispers Back. Around Us The Rain Sounds Like Falling Glass. “not Since Third Grade, Anyway.” I Smile, But I’m Not Sure If He Can See It. “better Get Started, Then,” I Say, “because I Don’t Have Much Time.

I’ve Always Hated Being Looked At.

We Are Such Small, Stupid Things. For Most Of My Life I Thought Of Nature As The Stupid Thing: Blind, Animal, Destructive. We, The Humans, Were Clean And Smart And In Control: We Had Wrestled The Rest Of The World Into Submission, Battered It Down, Pinned It To A Glass Slide And The Pages Of The Bool Of Shhh.

The Past Is Nothing But A Weight. It Will Build Inside Of You Like A Stone.

As Soon As I Look Up, His Eyes Click Onto My Face. The Breath Whooshes Out Of My Body And Everything Freezes For A Second, As Though I’m Looking At Him Through My Camera Lens, Zoomed In All The Way, The World Pausing For That Tiny Span Of Time Between The Opening And Closing Of The Shutter.

Love At First Sight

As Steve Draws Me Closer To The Band, All I Can See Is A Frenzied Mass Of Seething, Writhing People, Like A Many-headed Sea Snake, Grinding, Waving Their Arms, Stamping Their Feet, Jumping. No Rules, Just Energy - So Much Energy, You Could Harness It; I Bet You Could Power Portland For A Decade. It Is More Than A Wave. It's A Tide, An Ocean Of Bodies.

I Want To Be Healed And Whole And Perfect Again, Like A Misshapen Slab Of Iron That Comes Out Of The Fire Glowing, Glittering, Razor-sharp.

It's As Though The Words Are Trapped, Buried Under Past Fears, Past Lives, Like Fossils Compressed Under Layers Of Dirt.

Life Isn't Life If You Just Float Through It.

There Are More Of Us Than You Think.

I’m Sorry,” He Repeats Again, Too Low For Raven And Tack To Hear. “i’m Sorry For Everything.

I Know What The Problem Is, Of Course. The Disorientation, The Distraction, The Difficulty Focusing - All Classic Phase One Signs Of Deliria. But I Don't Care. If Pneumonia Felt This Good I'd Stand Out In The Snow In The Winter With Bare Feet And No Coat, Or March Into The Hospital And Kiss Pneumonia Patients

I Want To Know." His Words Are A Whisper, Barely Audible. "i Want To Know With You.

When You Love Someone, When You Care For Someone, You Have To Do It Through The Good And The Bad. Not Just When You're Happy And It's Easy.

When You Love Someone

This Is What Happens When You Try To Help People. You Get Screwed.

Is This Freedom? Is It Happiness? I Don't Know. I Don't Care Anymore. It Is Different--it Is Being Alive.

I'm So Tired After Dinner I Fall Asleep With My Clothes On, Almost As Soon As My Head Hits The Pillow, And So I Forget To Ask God, In My Prayers, To Keep Me From Waking Up.

At The Same Time I Know That It’s Not Really Their Fault, At Least Not Completely. I Did My Part Too. I Did It On A Hundred Different Days And In A Thousand Different Ways, And I Know It. But This Makes The Anger Worse, Not Better.

I'm Not Scared, If That's What You're Wondering. The Moment Of Death Is Full Of Sound And Warmth And Light Shooting Away, Arcing Up And Up And Up, And If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing... The Rest You Have To Find Out For Yourself.

There's A Place For Everything And Everyone, You Know. That Is The Mistake They Make Above. They Think That Only Certain People Have A Place. Only Certain Kinds Of People Belong. The Rest Is Waste. But Even Waste Must Have A Place. Otherwise It Will Clog And Clot, And Rot And Fester.

But It Does Not Tell You This: That Love Will Turn The Whole World Into Something Greater Than Itself.

That’s What You Do For Family. Anything.

I’ve Never Really Had A Party Before.” “why Did You Have One Now?” I Say, Just To Keep Him Talking. He Gives A Half Laugh. “i Thought If I Had A Party, You Would Come.

I Just Want To Be Normal, Like Everybody Else." "are You Sure That Being Like Everybody Else Will Make You Happy?

He’s Speaking In The Tone Of Voice That Everyone Uses When They’re About To Break You Apart. Gentle—kind, Even—like They Can Make The News Sound Better Just By Speaking In A Lullaby Voice.

I Don't Know Where To Go. I Don't Know What Comes Now." "don't Worry," Will Said. "we'll Figure Something Out." Liesl Managed To Smile At Him. She Liked That Word: *we*. It Sounded Warm And Open, Like A Hug.

What Does It Feel Like To Be Infected?" "i-- I Can't Describe It." I Force The Words Out. Can't Breathe, Can't Breathe, Can't Breathe. His Skin Smells Like Smoke From A Wood Fire, Like Soap, Like Heaven. I Imagine Tasting His Skin; I Imagine Biting His Lips. "i Want To Know." His Words Are A Whisper, Barely Audible. "i Want To Know With You.

Hunky Heroes, Rescuing Distressed Women, Captive Princesses, And Girls Without Wheels Since 1684. P. 450

That's The Easy Thing About Falling: There Is Only One Choice After That.

Fear. Blame. Don't Forget. Mom. I Love You. -lauren Oliver, Delerium

People Need Other People To Feel Things For Them," She Said. "it Gets Lonely To Feel Things All By Yourself.

It Was All Very Strange, Mr. Gray Thought, As He Wiped The Coffee Canister Clean With A Sponge. Very, Very Mysterious. You Were Born; You Lived A Whole Life; And At The End, You Wound Up In A Coffee Canister. "ah, Well," He Said Out Loud Quietly. "that's Just The Way Things Are. Life's A Funny Business." Death, He Supposed, Was The Punch Line.

There Were Days I Asked For It-prayed For It When I Went To Sleep. The Belief That I Would See You Again, That I Could Find You-the Hope For It-was The Only Thing That Kept Me Going.

His Eyes Are The Color Of Honey. These Are The Eyes I Remember From My Dreams.

The Reason You Can Never Go Home Again Isn't Necessarily That Places Change, But People Do. So Nothing Ever Looks The Same.

Could It Be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On A Friday?” I Roll My Eyes. “i Don’t Know. Did You Do A Lot Of Acid In The Sixties? Could Be A Flashback.” “i Was Two Years Old In 1960. I Came Too Late For The Party.” He Leans Down And Pecks Me On The Head. I Pull Away Out Of Habit. “and I’m Not Even Going To Ask How You Know About Acid Flashbacks.” “what’s An Acid Flashback?” Izzy Crows. “nothing,” My Dad And I Say At The Same Time, And He Smiles At Me.

It Is War Now, And Armies Need Symbols.

We'll Walk Together Holding Hands, And Kiss In Broad Daylight, And Love Each Other As Much As We Want To, And No One Will Ever Try To Keep Up Apart.

They've Lied About Everything.-about The Fence, And The Existence Of Invalids, About A Million Other Things Besides. They Told Us The Raids Were Carried Out For Our Own Protection. They Told Us The Regulators Were Only Interested In Keeping The Peace. They Told Us Love Was A Disease. They Told Us It Would Kill Us In The End. For The Very First Time I Realize, That This, Too, Maight Also Be A Lie.

The Memories Seem Like Snapshots From Someone Else’s Life.

Less Than A Month Ago All Of August Still Stretched Before Us - Long And Golden And Reassuring, Like An Endless Period Of Delicious Sleep.

And When I Wake Up It's Wonderful, Like I've Been Carried Quietly Onto A Calm, Peaceful Shore, And The Dream, And Its Meaning, Has Broken Over Me Like A Wave And Is Ebbing Away Now, Leaving Me With A Single, Solid Certainty. I Know Now.

Happiness Is Found When No One Is Looking

Most Of The Time-- 99 Percent Of The Time-- You Just Don't Know How And Why The Threads Are Looped Together, And That's Okay. Do A Good Thing And Something Bad Happens. Do A Bad Thing And Something Good Happens. Do Nothing And Everything Explodes.

Time And Space Recede And Blast Away Like A Universe Expanding Forever Outward, And Leaving Only Darkness And The Two Of Us On Its Periphery, Darkness And Breathing And Touch.

And You Can't Love, Not Fully, Unless You Are Loved In Return.

I Vowed After That Day That I Would Be Your Hero Too, No Matter How Long It Took

Still, The Vivid Green Of The Grass-where The Grass Is Actually Managing To Assert Itself Through The Dirt-seems Out Of Place. This Seems Like A Place Where The Sun Should Never Shine: A Place On The Edge, At The Limit, A Place Completely Removed From Time And Happiness And Life.

And How She Looked At Me Like I Could Save Her From Everything Bad In He World. This Was My Secret: She Was The One Who Saved Me

This Is The Language Of The World Before—a World Of Chaos And Confusion And Happiness And Despair—before The Blitz Turned Streets To Grids, Cities To Prisons, And Hearts To Dust.

My Parents Were Pretty Liberal, But They Were Still Parents. I Definitely Had My Teenage Rebellion.

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge.

My Heart Shoots Into My Throat Every Time I Think I See His Loping Walk, Or Catch Sight Of Some Floppy Brown Hair On A Boy - But It's Never Him, And Each Time It Isn't, My Heart Does A Reverse Trajectory Down Into The Very Pit Of My Stomach.

That's When You Realize That Most Of It-life, The Relentless Mechanism Of Existing-isn't About You. It Doesn't Include You At All. It Will Thrust Onward Even After You've Jumped The Edge. Even After You're Dead.

A String Of Bright White Buildinh, Glistening Like Teeth Over The Slurping Mouth Of The Ocean.

Mistake, Mistake, Mistake. A Strange Word: Stinging, Somehow.

It Is A Ruined-world, A Nonsense-place.

And Even If She Isn’t—even If By Some Miracle, She Survived The Escape And Has Been Squeezing Out A Living In The Wilds—she Would Never Join Forces With The Resisters. She Would Never Be Violent Or Vengeful. Not Lena, Who Used To Practically Faint When She Pricked A Finger, Who Couldn’t Even Lie To A Teacher About Being Late. She Wouldn’t Have The Stomach For It.

And When It Started To Get Dark You Pointed To The Sky, And Told Me There Was A Star For Every Thing You Loved About Me.

A Room Full Of Words That Are Nearly The Truth But Not Quite, Each Note Fluttering Off The Steam Of Its Rose Like A Broken Butterfly Wing.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

He Is My World And My World Is Him And Without Him There Is No World.

We Are All Punished For The Lives We Have Chosen, In One Way Or Another.

...into Hate, Into Refusal, Against Hope And Without Fear

No One Can Tell Us No. No One Can Make Us Stop. We Have Picked Each Other And The Rest Of The World Can Go To Hell.

Amor Deliria Nervosa Isn't A Disease Of Love. It's A Disease Of Selfishness.

Fourth Period I Have "life Skills", Which Is What They Call Gym When You're Old Enough To Be Offended By Forced Physical Activity (elody Thinks They Should Call It Slavery Instead, For Accuracy).

When He Speaks Again, I Can Tell That He's Smiling. "so I Guess We Saved Each Other.

At A Certain Point Your Brain Stops To Rationalize Things. At A Certain Point It Gives Up, Shuts Off, Shuts Down.

An Eye For An Eye." "and The Whole World Goes Blind," Coral Puts In Quietly.

It's A Miracle I Was Able To Get Out Of The House Today. It's A Miracle I'm Even Wearing Pants, A Double Miracle I Remembered To Wear Shoes.

Suicide. A Sideways Word, A Word That People Whisper And Mutter And Cough: A Word That Must Be Squeezed Out Behind Cupped Palms Or Murmured Behind Closed Doors. It Was Only In Dreams That I Heard The Word Shouted, Screamed.

In A World Without Love, This Is What People Are To Each Other: Values, Benefits, And Liabilities, Numbers And Data. We Weigh, We Quantify, We Measure, And The Soul Is Ground To Dust.

Sarah: "not Bad. You Look Almost Human." Lena: "thanks." Sarah: "i Said Almost." Lena: "well, Then, Almost Thanks.

It's Not My Fault I Can't Be Like You, Okay? I Don't Get Up In The Morning Thinking The World Is One Big, Shiny, Happy Place, Okay? That's Just Not How I Work. I Don't Think I Can Be Fixed.

Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

Things Would Get Difficult Again. But That Was Okay Too. The Bravery Was In Moving Forward, No Matter What.

For A Second I Feel A Rush Of Sadness: For The Horizons That Vanish Behind Us, For The People We Leave Behind, The Tiny-doll Selves That Get Stored Away And Ultimately Buried.

Through Wind, And Tempest, Storm, And Rain; The Calm Shall Be Buried Inside Of Me; A Warm Stone, Heavy And Dry; The Root, The Source, A Weapon Against Pain

We’ll Go.” Her Voice Is Surprisingly Deep And Forceful. Set In Her Sunken, Shipwreck Face, Her Eyes Burn Like Two Smoldering Coals. “we’ll Fight.

...if You Are One Tardy Away From Missing Out On A Big Competition, You Should Probably Make Your Coffee At Home.

I'm Not Ugly But I'm Not Pretty Either. Everything Is In-between. I Have Eyes That Aren't Green Or Brown, But A Muddle. I'm Not Thin But I'm Not Fat Either. The Only Thing You Could Definitely Say About Me Is That: I'm Short

Summer Explodes Into Portland. In Early June The Heat Was There But Not The Color--the Green Were Still Pale And Tentative, The Morning Had A Biting Coolness--but By The Last Week Of School Everything Is Technicolor And Splash, Outrageous Blue Skies And Purple Thunderstorms And Ink-black Night Skies And Red Flowers As Brights As Spots Of Blood.

Holy Mother Of Lord Cocoa Puffs

I Wish I Could Close My Eyes And Be Blown Into Dust And Nothingness, Feel All My Thoughts Disperse Like Dandelion Fluff Drifting Off On The Wind. But His Hands Keep Pulling Me Back: Into The Alley, And Portland, And A World That Has Suddenly Stopped Making Sense.

This Was What True Fear Was--that You Could Never Know Other People, Not Completely. That You Were Always Just Guessing Blind.

I Have Had To Give Up So Much, So Many Selves And Lives Already. I Have Grown Up And Out Of The Rubble Of My Old Lives, Of Things And People I Have Cared For.

Direction, Like Time, Is A General Thing, The Deprived Of Boundaries And Borders. It Is An Endless Process Interception And Reinterception, Doubling Back And Adjusting.

Love Is A Kind Of Possession. It’s A Poison.

Mary Bring Out Your Umbrella - The Sun Shines Down On This Fine, Fine Day But The Ashes Raining Down Forever Are Going To Turn Your Hair To Gray. Mary Keep Your Oars A-steady Sail Away On The Rising Flood Keep Your Candle At The Ready Red Tides Can't Be Told From Blood. - "miss Mary" (a Common Child's Clapping Game, Dating From The Time Of The Blitz), From Pattycake And Beyond: A History Of Play

I Need Him To Know That I Came For Him. I Need Him To Know That Somehow, At Some Point In The Tunnels, I Began To Love Him.

It Was A Bird. A Bird Struggling Through Stickiness: A Bird Coated In Paint, Floundering In Its Nest, Splashing Color Everywhere. Red. Red. Red. Dozens Of Them: Black Feathers Coated Thickly With Crimson-colored Paint, Fluttering Among The Branches. Red Means Run.

But Maybe Happiness Isn't In The Choosing. Maybe It's In The Fiction, In The Pretending: That Wherever We Have Ended Up Is Where We Intended To Be All Along.

It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me. And I Don't Care.

The Idea—the Fact Of It, The Fact That He Even Noticed And Thought About Me For More Than One Second—is Huge And Overwhelming, Makes My Legs Go Tingly And My Hands Feel Numb.

I Need To Live My Life In The Light Of Their Deaths. I Need To Live.

Hope Keeps You Alive.

I've Been So Used To Thinking Of What The Borders Are Keeping Out That I Haven't Considered That They're Also Penning Us In.

So Far I've Seen The Life Studies Packet Used As (1) An Umbrella, (2) A Makeshift Towel, (3) A Pillow, And Now This. I Have Never Actually Seen Anyone Study With It, Which Either Means That Everyone Who Graduates From Thomas Jefferson Will Be Totally Unprepared For Life Or That Certain Things Can't Be Learned In Bullet-point Format.

Only When It Rains. And Sometimes, Too, When I Remember.

She Was Mine Before She Was Yours.

He Was Still In Love With You, Anyway.

Amor Deliria Nervosa: It Affects Your Mind So That You Cannot Think Clearly, Or Make Rational Decisions About Your Own Well-being. Symptom Number Twelve.

Huamns, Uregulated, Are Cruel And Capricious; Violet And Selfish; Miserable And Quarrelsome. It Is Only After Their Instincts And Basic Emotions Have Been Controlled That They Can Be Happy, Generous, And Good.

Love Is The Only Thing In The World Worth Having. You Must Never Loose It Or Give It Away. We Must Never Let Them Take It From Us.

Even The Greatest Movements On Earth, Have Their Beginnings With Something Small.

It's Funny How You Can Know Your Friends So Well, But You Still End Up Playing The Same Games With Them.

Something Must Die So That Others Can Live.

Sometimes I Feel Like If You Just Watch Things, Just Sit Still And Let The World Exist In Front Of You - Sometimes I Swear That Just For A Second Time Freezes And The World Pauses In Its Tilt. Just For A Second. And If You Somehow Found A Way To Live In That Second, Then You Would Live Forever.

They Say The Cure Is About Happiness, But I Understand Now That It Isn't, And It Never Was. It's About Fear: Fear Of Pain, Fear Of Hurt, Fear, Fear, Fear - A Blind Animal Existence, Bumping Between Walls, Shuffling Between Ever-narrowing Hallways, Terrified And Dull And Stupid.

Everything Looks Beautiful. The Book Of Shhh Says That Deliria Alters Your Perception, Disables Your Ability To Reason Clearly, Impairs You From Making Sound Judgments. But It Does Not Tell You This: That Love Will Turn The Whole World Into Something Greater Than Itself.

I Feel Like A Curtain Has Dropped Away And I'm Seeing People For Who They Really Are, Different, And Sharp, And Unknowable.

The Story Of Solomon Is The Only Way I Know How To Explain. And Then, In Smaller Letters: Forgive Me.

One Of The Strangest Things About Life Is That It Will Chug On, Blind And Oblivious, Even As Your Private World - Your Little Carved-out Sphere - Is Twisting And Morphing, Even Breaking Apart.

This Is The Past: It Drifts, It Gathers. If You Are Not Careful, It Will Bury You.

With The Cure, Relationships Are All The Same, And Rules And Expectations Are Defined. Without The Cure, Relationships Must Be Reinvented Every Day, Languages Constantly Decoded And Deciphered. Freedom Is Exhausting.

Perhaps This Was How The Sparrows Did It Too; Perhaps They Were Looking So Hard At The Peaks And Tips Of The New Rooftops Coated With Dew, And The Vast New Horizon, That They Only Forgot That They Did Not Know How To Fly Until They Were Already In Midair.

Fridays Are The Hardest In Some Ways: You’re So Close To Freedom.

That's What It Was Like Waking Up In The Crypts. No-longer-dead. But Without Her. Like Burning Alive.

The Devil Stole Into The Garden Of Eden. He Carried With Him The Disease - Amor Deliria Nervosa - In The Form Of A Seed. It Grew And Flowered Into A Magnificent Apple Tree, Which Bore Apples As Bright As Blood. -from Genesis: A Complete History Of The World And The Known Universe, By Steven Horace, Phd, Harvard University

We Can Never Understand. We Can Only Try, Fumbling Our Way Through The Tunneled Places, Reaching For Light.

Until, One Day, She Wasn’t.

It's Too Late. I've Seen Things...i've Lost Things You Can't Understand.

If Cassie Was Invalidated Because She Caught The Disease, Or Because Fred Suspected Her Of It, I Can Only Imagine What He Will Do To Me And To My Family If He Discovers That The Cure Did Not Work Perfectly.

Everyone You Trust, Everyone You Think You Can Count On, Will Eventually Disappoint You.

I Wonder If This Is How People Always Get Close: They Heal Each Other's Wounds; They Repair The Broken Skin.

Because If It Weren’t For Me, Lena And Alex Would Never Have Been Caught At All. I Told On Them. I Was Jealous.

People Could Push And Pull At You, And Poke You, And Probe As Deep As They Could Go. They Could Even Tear You Apart, Bit By Bit. But At The Heart And Root And Soul Of You, Something Would Remain Untouched.

And You Should Hear The Music. Incredible, Amazing Music, Like Nothing You've Ever Heard, Music That Almost Takes Your Head Off, You Know? That Makes You Want To Scream And Jump Up And Down And Break Stuff And Cry.

The Old Lena Is Dead.

I Know What The Problem Is, Of Course. The Disorientation, The Distraction, The Difficulty Focusing - All Classic Phase One Signs Of Deliria. But I Don't Care. If Pneumonia Felt This Good I'd Stand Out In The Snow In The Winter With Bare Feet And No Coat, Or March Into The Hospital And Kiss Pneumonia Patients

They Haven't Killed Us Yet," I Say, And I Imagine That One Day I Will Fly A Plane Over Portland, Over Rochester, Over Every Fenced-in City In The Whole Country, And I Will Bomb And Bomb And Bomb, And Watch All Their Buildings Smoldering To Dust, And All Those People Melting And Bleeding Into Flame, And I Will See How They Like It. If You Take, We Will Take Back. Steal From Us, And We Will Rob You Blind. When You Squeeze, We Will Hit. This Is The Way The World Is Made Now.

For A Second, I Feel A Sense Of Overwhelming Grief: For How Things Change, For The Fact That We Can Never Go Back. I'm Not Certain Of Anything Anymore. I Don't Know What Will Happen--

You Have To Go Forward: It's The Only Way. You Have To Go Forward No Matter What Happens. This Is The Universal Law.

Step On A Crack , You'll Break Your Mama's Back. Step On A Stone, You'll End Up All Alone. Step On A Stick, You're Bound To Get The Sick. Watch Where You Tread, You'll Bring Out All The Dead. - A Common Children's Playground Chant, Usually Accompanied By Jumping Rope Or Clapping.

It Occurs To Me That There Is So Much I Never Knew About Him--his Past, His Role In The Resistance, What His Life Was Like In The Wilds, Before He Came To Portland, And I Feel A Flash Of Grief So Intense It Almost Makes Me Cry Out: Not For What I Lost, But For The Chances I Missed.

It's An Incredible Thing, How You Can Feel So Taken Care Of By Someone And Yet Feel, Also, Like You Would Die Or Do Anything Just For The Chance To Protect Him Back.

Amazing How Hope Lives. Without Air Or Water, With Hardly Anything At All To Nurture It.

Everytime He Brushes Me With His Fingers, Time Seems To Tether For A Second, Like It Is In Danger Of Dissolving. The Whole World Is Dissolving, I Decide, Except For Us. Us.

It's The Way He Says My Name: Like Music.

For A Second We Just Stand There In Silence. Then, Suddenly, Alex Is Back, Easy And Smiling Again. “i Left A Note For You One Time. In The Governor’s Fist, You Know?” I Left A Note For You One Time. It’s Impossible, Too Crazy To Think About, And I Hear Myself Repeating, “you Left A Note For Me?” “i’m Pretty Sure It Said Something Stupid. Just Hi, And A Smiley Face, And My Name. But Then You Stopped Coming.” He Shrugs. “it’s Probably Still There. The Note, I Mean. Probably Just A Bit Of Paper Pulp By Now.

Sometimes I Think Maybe They Were Right All Along, The People On The Other Side In Zombieland. Maybe It Would Be Better If We Didn't Love. If We Didn't Lose Either. If We Didn't Get Our Hearts Stomped On, Shattered: If We Didn't Have To Patch And Repatch Until We're Like Frankenstein Monsters, All Sewn Together And Bound Up By Who Knows What. If We Could Just Float Along, Like Snow. But How Could Anyone Who's Ever Seen A Summer - Big Explosions Of Green And Skies Lit Up Electric With Splashy Sunsets, A Riot Of Flowers And Wind That Smells Like Honey - Pick The Snow?

But The Guilt Goes Even Deeper Than That. It, Too, Is Dust: Layers And Layers Of It Have Accumulated. Because If It Weren’t For Me, Lena And Alex Would Never Have Been Caught At All. I Told On Them. I Was Jealous. God Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned.

I'm Starved For Different Light, A Different Sun,different Sky.

The First One, We’ll Name Blue.

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