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As We're Standing There I Realize We're Almost Exactly The Same Height. We Must Look Like The Dark And Light Side Of An Oreo Cookie, And I Think How Just As Easily It Could Have Been The Other Way Around. She Could Be Blocking My Path; I Could Be Trying To Slip Around Her Into The Dark.

-Lauren Oliver

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As We're Standing There

Lauren Oliver

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As We're Standing There I Realize We're Almost Exactly The Same Height. We Must Look Like The Dark And Light Side Of An Oreo Cookie, And I Think How Just As Easily It Could Have Been The Other Way Around. She Could Be Blocking My Path; I Could Be Trying To Slip Around Her Into The Dark.

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Both Of Us Will Die Today, Gunned Down Or Smashed Up Or Exploded In Some Terrible Moment Of Fire And Twisted Metal, And When They Go To Bury Us We'll Be So Melted Together And Entwined They Won't Be Able To Separate The Bodies; Pieces Of Him Will Go With Me, And Pieces Of Me Will Go With Him.

He Was Still In Love With You, Anyway.

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.

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.

It's Going To Be Okay. Words That Mean Nothing. Really, Just Sounds Intoned Into Vastness And Darkness, Little Scrabbling Attempts To Latch On To Something When We're Falling.

Most People Don't Want To Be Saved. Besides, If You Keep Bailing Everybody Out, They'll Never Learn To Paddle On Their Own.

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

I'm Gone, Lost, Floating Away Into Nothingness Like I Am In My Dream, But This Time It's A Good Feeling - Like Soaring, Like Being Totally Free, And I Can Feel The Impression Of His Fingers Everywhere That They Touch, And I Think Of Stars Streaking Through The Sky And Leaving Burning Trails Behind Them, And In That Moment - However Long It Lasts, Seconds, Minutes, Days - While He's Saying My Name Into My Mouth And I'm Breathing Into Him, I Realize This, Right Here, Is The First And Only Time I've Ever Been Kissed In My Life.

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..." ♥

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.

Please Understand. Please Forgive Me. I Prayed Every Day For You To Be Alive, Until Hope Became Painful. Don't Hate Me. I Still Love You.

I Am Now Officially Married To Fred Hargrove. Nothing Will Ever Be The Same.

The Question Was: Will You Meet Me Tomorrow? And The Word Was: Yes.

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

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.

Most Things, Even The Greatest Movements On Earth, Have Their Beginnings In Something Small. An Earthquake That Shatters A City Might Begin With A Tremble, A Breath. Music Begins With A Vibration . . . And God Created The Whole Universe From An Atom No Bigger Than A Thought.

I Put My Forehead On His Collarbone, Place One Hand On His Chest. Its Rhythm Reassures Me: He Is Real, And He Is Now.

That Is What Hatred Is. It Will Feed You And At The Same Time Turn You To Rot. It Is Hard And Deep And Angular, A System Of Blockades. It Is Everything And Total. Hatred Is A High Tower. In The Wilds, I Start To Build, And To Climb.

That's My Favorite Thing About Him. I Like To Lie Next To Him When It's Late, Dark, And So Quiet I Can Hear My Own Heartbeat. It's Times Like That When I'm Sure That I'm In Love.

Here's Another Thing To Remember: Hope Keeps You Alive. Even When You're Dead, It's The Only Thing That Keeps You Alive.

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, Might Also Be A Lie.

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.

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

For The First Time In My Life I Actually Feel Sorry For Carol. I'm Only Seventeen Years Old, And I Already Know Something She Doesn't Know: I Know That Life Isn't Life If You Just Float Through It. I Know That The Whole Point- The Only Point- Is To Find Things That Matter, And Hold On To Them, And Fight For Them, And Refuse To Let Them Go.

I Don't Know How I Stay On My Feet, Why I Don;t Just Shatter Into Dust Right There, Why My Heart Keeps Beating When I Want It So Badly To Stop

People Do Terrible Things, Sometimes, For The Best Reasons.

It Is War Now, And Armies Need Symbols.

If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing.

There Is So Much Fragility In Kissing, In Other People: It Is All Glass.

I Love You. They Can't Take It Away.

And We Did, And It Wasn’t Bad. We Ate The Whole Stupid Can, We Were So Hungry. 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.” I’m Gasping, Feeling As Though I Am About To Drown; I’m Reaching For Him Blindly, Grabbing At His Collar.

Of All The Systems Of The Body - Neurological, Cognitive, Special, Sensory - The Cardiological System Is The Most Sensitive And Easily Disturbed. The Role Of Society Must Be To Shelter These Systems From Infection And Decay, Or Else The Future Of The Human Race Is At Stake. Like A Summer Fruit That Is Protected From Insect Invasion, Bruising, And Rot By The Whole Mechanism Of Modern Farming; So Must We Protect The Heart.

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

I Used To Lie Here Like This All Summer Long,' I Tell Her. 'i'd Come Up Here And Just Stare At The Sky.' She Rolls Over On Her Back So She's Staring Up As Well. 'bet This View Hasn't Changed Much, Has It?' What She Says Is So Simple I Almost Laugh. She's Right, Of Course. 'no. This Looks Exactly The Same.' I Suppose That's The Secret, If You're Ever Wishing For Things To Go Back To The Way They Were. You Just Have To Look Up.

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.

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.

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

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

That Was What Her Parents Did Not Understand—and Had Never Understood—about Stories. Liza Told Herself Storied As Though She Was Weaving And Knotting An Endless Rope. Then, No Matter How Dark Or Terrible The Pit She Found Herself In, She Could Pull Herself Out, Inch By Inch And Hand Over Hand, On The Long Rope Of Stories.

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

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.

They Couldn’t Have Known That Even This Was A Lie—that We Never Really Choose, Not Entirely. We Are Always Being Pushed And Squeezed Down One Road Or Another. We Have No Choice But To Step Forward, And Then Step Forward Again, And Then Step Forward Again; Suddenly We Find Ourselves On A Road We Haven’t Chosen At All. 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.

My Boyfriend's An Idiot," I Say As Soon As He Lurches Away."a Cute Idiot," Ally Corrects Me."that's Like Saying 'a Cute Mutant.' Doesn't Exist.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

And This, Really, Is The Story-within-the-story, Because If You Do Not Believe That Hearts Can Bloom Suddenly Bigger, And That Love Can Open Like A Flower Out Of Even The Hardest Places, Then I Am Afraid That For You The World Will Be Long And Brown And Barren, And You Will Have Trouble Finding The Light. But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

Additionally, Liesl And Po Is The Embodiment Of What Writing Has Always Been For Me At Its Purest And Most Basic--not A Paycheck, Certainly; Not An Idea, Even; And Not An Escape. Actually, It Is The Opposite Of An Escape; It Is A Way Back In, A Way To Enter And Make Sense Of A World That Occasionally Seems Harsh And Terrible And Mystifying. (from The "author's Note" At The End).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

That’s What Made It So Frightening To The Lawmakers: Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

The Tunnels May Be Long, And Twisted, And Dark; But You Are Supposed To Go Through Them.

Po Flickered. "thank You?" It Repeated. "what Is That?" Liesl Thought. "it Means, You Were Wonderful," She Said. "it Means, I Couldn't Have Done It Without You.

Some Things Are Better Left Buried And Forgotten.

Amazingly, I'd Actually Forgotten That I'm Supposed To Be Plain. I'm So Used To Alex Telling Me I'm Beautiful. I'm So Used To Feeling Beautiful Around Him. A Hollow Opens Up In My Chest. This Is What Life Will Be Like Without Him: Everything Will Become Ordinary Again. I'll Become Ordinary Again.

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

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

You Can't Tell Me What To Feel

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.

Who Knows? Maybe They’re Right. Maybe We Are Driven Crazy By Our Feelings. Maybe Love Is A Disease, And We Would Be Better Off Without It. But We Have Chosen A Different Road. And In The End That Is The Point Of Escaping The Cure: We Are Free To Choose. We Are Even Free To Choose The Wrong Thing.

I Get That Rush That Comes When You Know You're Doing Something Wrong And Are Getting Away With It, Like Stealing From The School Cafeteria Of Getting Tipsy At A Family Holiday Without Anyone Knowing It.

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 Screamed Until My Voice Dried Up In My Throat. We All Did. All Of Us In Ward Six, All Of Us Forgotten, Left To Rot.

Funny How Certain Things Stay With You.

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.

There Is Nothing Else For People To Do. They Do Not Think. They Feel No Passion, No Hatred, No Sadness; They Feel Nothing But Fear, And A Desire To Control. So They Watch, And Poke, And Pry.

You Can Try To Pin Me Down With A Hundred Thousand Arms, But I Will Find A Way To Resist

The Kidnapping, The Kiss. I Brought Him Here, After All. I Rescue Him An Pulled Him Into This New Life, A Life Of Freedom And Feeling.

Juliet!' I Whip Around But Not Quickly Enough. She's Swallowed By The Crowd, The Gap That Allowed Her To Break For The Door Closing Just As Quickly As It Opened, A Shifting Tetris Pattern Of Bodies.

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

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

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.

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

You Have To Learn That People Are Always Listening.

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

There Is Only What You Want And What Happens. There Is Only Grabbing On And Holding Tight In The Darkness.

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

I Feel Like I'm Playing Some Giant Video Game, Or Trying To Solve A Really Complicated Math Equation. 'one Girl Is Trying To Avoid Forty Raiding Parties Of Between Fifteen To Twenty People Each, Spread Out Across A Radius Of Seven Miles. If She Has To Make It 2.7 Miles Through The Center, What Is The Probablitiy She Will Wake Up Tomorrow Morning In A Jail Cell? Please Feel Free To Round Pi To 3.14'.

And When We Are With Alex, I Might As Well Not Be There. They Speak In A Language Of Whispers And Giggles And Secrets; Their Words Are Like A Fairy-tale Tangle Of Thorns, Which Place A Wall Between Us.

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.

The Alchemist Was Dazed And Dumbfounded, As The True Meaning Of The Magic Was Revealed: *the Dead Will Rise From Glade To Glen And Ancient Will Be Young Again*. The Dead Had, After All, Risen. From Dead And Dry Things There Was Growth, And New Life Everywhere. And The Endlessly Long Winter Had At Last Turned To Spring. From Life To Death And Back Again To Life. It Was Indeed The Greatest Magic In The World.

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

He's Stuck With Me And I'm Stuck With Him. We're Stuck. That's What Growing Up Is All About, I Guess.

Something Aches At The Very Core Of Me, Something Ancient And Deep And Stronger Than Words: The Filament That Joins Each Of Us To The Root Of Existence, That Ancient Thing Unfurling And Resisting And Grappling, Desperately, For A Foothold, A Way To Stay Here, Breathe, Keep Going.

Maybe You Can Afford To Wait. Maybe For You There's A Tomorrow. Maybe For You There's One Thousand Tomorrows, Or Three Thousand, Or Ten, So Much Time You Can Bathe In It, Roll Around It, Let It Slide Like Coins Through You Fingers. So Much Time You Can Waste It. But For Some Of Us There's Only Today. And The Truth Is, You Never Really Know.

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

Waste Today, Want Tomorrow.

Let Me Tell You Something About Dying: It's Not As Bad As They Says. It's The Coming-back-to-life Part That Hurts.

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.

You Should Only Fall In Love With People Who Will Fall In Love With You Back.

Falling In Love

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.

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

Love. I Love You. I’ll Always Love You, My Love. You Are The Love Of My Life.

Love Of My Life

Always Love You

And In That Moment, The Wordless Thing Passed Between Us, The Thing That Wasn't Quite Love But Was So Close I Could Believe In It Sometimes.

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

The Hours Here Are Flat And Round, Disks Of Gray Layered One On Top Of The Other...they Move Slowly, At A Grind, Until It Seems As Though They Are Not Moving At All. They Are Just Pressing Down.

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

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.

My First Kiss. A New Kind Of Kiss, Like The New Kind Of Music Still Playing, Softly, In The Distance - Wild And Arrhythmic, Desperate. Passionate.

How Can Someone Have The Power To Shatter You To Dust--and Also To Make You Feel So Whole?

Human Beings, In Their Natural State, Are Unpredictable, Erratic, And Unhappy. It Is Only Once Their Animal Instincts Are Controlled That They Can Be Responsible, Dependable, And Content.

This Is Not The Person I Wanted To Become: Hatred Has Carved A Permanent Place Inside Me, A Hollow Where Things Are So Easily Lost.

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 So Strange How Life Works: You Want Something And You Wait And Wait And Feel Like It's Taking Forever To Come. Then It Happens And It's Over And All You Want To Do Is Curl Back Up In That Moment Before Things Changed.

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

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

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.

...the Past: It Drifts, It Gathers. If You Are Not Careful, It Will Bury You. This Is Half The Reason For The Cure: It Clean-sweeps; It Makes The Past, And All Its Pain, Distant, Like The Barest Impression On Sparkling Glass.

We're On The Other Side Of The Fence Now, Lena,' She Says, Tiredly, As She Passes. "don't You Get It? You Can't Tell Me What To Feel.

The Wilds Aren't Safe Anymore.

My Wild, Uncured, Erratic, Incomprehensible Heart.

The First One, We’ll Name Blue.

When We Get Out Of Highschool We'll Look Back And Know We Did Everything Right, That We Kissed The Cutest Boys And Went To The Best Parties, Got In Just Enough Trouble, Listened To Our Music Too Loud, Smoked Too Many Cigarettes, And Drank Too Much And Laughed Too Much And Listened Too Little, Or Not Al All.

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.

Most Of Us Won't See One Another After Graduation, And Even If We Do It Will Be Different. We'll Be Different. We'll Be Adults--cured, Tagged And Labeled And Paired And Identified And Placed Neatly On Our Life Path, Perfectly Round Marbles Set To Roll Down Even, Well-defined Slopes.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried.

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.

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.

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

She Was Mine Before She Was Yours.

I Thought The Invalids Were Beasts; I Thought They Would Rip Me Apart. But These People Saved Me, And Gave Me The Softest Place To Sleep, And Nursed Me Back To Health, And Haven't Asked For Anything In Return. The Animals Are On The Other Side Of The Fence: Monsters Wearing Uniforms. They Speak Softly, And Tell Lies, And Smile As They're Slitting Your Throat.

And There It Is: Even Though We’re Standing In The Same Patch Of Sun-drenched Pavement, We Might As Well Be A Hundred Thousand Miles Apart.

There Are More Of Us Than You Think.

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

And It's The Funniest Thing: As Soon As I See It, The Whistling In My Ears Stops And The Feeling Of Terror Drains Away, And I Realize This Whole Time I Haven't Been Falling At All. I've Been Floating.

Funny How Time Heals. Like That Bullet In My Ribs. It's There, I Know It's There, But I Can Barely Feel It At All Anymore.

And For A Moment―for A Split Second―everything Else Falls Away, The Whole Pattern And Order Of My Life, And A Huge Joy Crests In My Chest. I Am No One, And I Owe Nothing To Anybody, And My Life Is My Own.

Everything In Me Feels Fluttering And Free, Like I Could Take Off From The Ground At Any Second. Music, I Think, He Makes Me Feel Like Music.

And A Face Above Mine, White And Beautiful, Eyes As Large As The Moon. You Saved Me. A Hand On My Cheek, Cool And Dry. Why Did You Save Me? Words Welling Up On A Tide: No, The Opposite. Eyes The Colour Of A Dawn Sky, A Crown Of Blond Hair, So Bright And White And Blinding I Could Swear It Was A Halo.

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.

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.

So Are You Going To Be My Knight In Shining Armor Or What?' Kent Does A Little Bow. 'you Know I Can't Resist A Damsel In Distress.

We're Killers, All Of Us: We Kill Our Lives, Our Past Selves, The Things That Mattered. We Bury Them Under Slogans And Excuses.

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

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

People Are Like Houses. They Could Open Their Doors. You Could Walk Through Their Rooms And Touch The Objects Hidden In Their Corners. But Something--the Structure, The Wiring, The Invisible Mechanism That Kept The Whole Thing Standing--remai Ned Invisible, Suggested Only By The Fact Of Its Existing At All.

Black Is Too Morbid; Red Will Set Them On Edge; Pink Is Too Juvenile; Orange Is Freakish

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.

What Glitters May Not Be Gold; And Even Wolves May Smile; And Fools Will Be Led By Promises To Their Deaths.

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.

Nothing Has Ever Been So Painful Or Delicious As Being So Close To Him And Being Unable To Do Anything About It: Like Eating Ice Cream So Fast On A Hot Day You Get A Splitting Headache.

I Was Glad When The Invalids Were Executed. Some People Complained That Lethal Injection Was Too Humane For Convicted Terrorists, But I Thought It Sent A Powerful Message: We Are Not The Evil Ones. We Are Reasonable And Compassionate. We Stand For Fairness, Structure, And Organization. It’s The Other Side, The Uncureds, Who Bring The Chaos.

I’m With Julian,” I Say At Last. This, After All, Is What I Have Chosen.

I Reach Out And Grab Her Wrist. It Feels Impossibly Tiny In My Hand, Like This One Time I Found A Baby Bird Near Goose Point, And I Picked It Up And It Died There, Taking Its Final Gasping Fluttering Breaths In My Palm.

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

They’d Already Taken Her From Me Once. I Didn’t Want To Lose Her Again.

I Guess There Are Some Things You Never Get Used To.

If You’re Smart, You Care. And If You Care, You Love.

But For Now, The Future, Like The Past, Means Nothing. For Now, There Is Only A Homestead Built Of Trash And Scraps, At The Edge Of A Broken City, Just Beyond A Towering City Dump; And Our Arrival-hungry, And Half-frozen, To A Place Of Food And Water And Walls That Keep Out The Brutal Winds. This, For Us, Is Heaven.

But That's The Problem With Love - It Acts On You, Works Through You, Resists Your Attempts To Control.

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 Know The Rules. I've Been Living Here Longer Than You Have." He Cracks A Smile Then. He Nudges Me Back. "hardly." "born And Raised. You're A Transplant." I Nudge Him Again, A Little Harder, And He Laughs And Tries To Catch Hold Of My Arm. I Squirm Away, Giggling, And He Stretches Out To Tickle My Stomach. "country Bumpkin!" I Squeal, As He Grabs Out And Wrestles Me Back Onto The Blanket, Laughing. "city Slicker," He Says, Rolling Over On Top Of Me, And Then Kisses Me. Everything Dissolves: Heat, Explosions Of Color, Floating.

For All The People Who Have Infected Me With Amor Deliria Nervosa In The Past - You Know Who You Are. For The People Who Will Infect Me In The Future - I Can't Wait To See Who You'll Be. And In Both Cases: Thank You.

Rainstorms Are Incredible: Falling Shards Of Glass, The Air Full Of Diamonds.

..in That Moment I Realize How Much I Love The Little Everyday Routines Of My Life..the Details That Are My Life's Special Pattern, Like How In Handwoven Rugs What Really Makes Them Unique Are The Tiny Flaws In The Stitching, Little Gaps And Jumps And Stutters That Can Never Be Reproduced. So Many Things Become Beautiful When You Really Look.

Everyday Routine

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.

But Maybe You Carried Your Demons With You Everywhere, The Way You Carried Your Shadow.

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.

"everyone Is Asleep. They've All Been Asleep For Years. You Seemed... Awake." Alex Is Whispering Now. He Closes His Eyes, Opens Them Again. "i'm Tired Of Sleeping."

In My Head I Try And Reach Back, Through The Fence, Past The Smoke; I Try And Grab His Hand And Pull. Alex, Come Back. There Is Nothing To Do But Sink. The Hours Close Around Me, Encase Me Completely, Like A Tomb.

Happiness Is Found When No One Is Looking

You Came Form Different Starts And You'll Come To Different Ends.

The Flip Side Of Freedom Is This: When You're Completely Free, You're Also Completely On Your Own.

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

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

Finishing Books - And Leaving The World You've Created - Is Always A Kind Of Emotionally Wrenching Experience. I Usually Cry.

I Shiver, Thinking How Easy It Is To Be Totally Wrong About People-to See One Tiny Part Of Them And Confuse It For The Whole, To See The Cause And Think It's The Effect Or Vice Versa

The Rules Of Panic Are Simple. Anyone Can Enter. But Only One Person Will Win.

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.

Lies Are Just Stories, And Stories Are All That Matter. We All Tell Stories. Some Are More Truthful Than Others, Maybe, But In The End The Only Thing That Counts Is What You Can Make People Believe.

"and I Love You Too." His Fingers Skate The Edge Of My Jaw, Dance Briefly Over My Lips. "you Should Know That. You Have To Know That."

But This Isn’t Like Anything I’ve Ever Seen, Or Imagined, Or Even Dreamed: This Is Like Music Or Dancing But Better Than Both.

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.

This Was What Being Cured Was Like: Like Being In A Fishbowl, Circling Always Inside The Same Glass.

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

Everything I See And Touch Reminds Me Of Him, And So Everything I See And Touch Is Perfect.

The Last Laugh, The Last Cup Of Coffee, The Last Sunset, The Last Time You Jump Through A Sprinkler, Or Eat An Ice-cream Cone, Or Stick Your Tongue Out To Catch A Snowflake. You Just Don't Know.

Of Course. That's What People Do In A Disordered World, A World Of Freedom And Choice: They Leave When They Want. They Disappear, They Come Back, They Leave Again. And You Are Left To Pick Up The Pieces On Your Own.

You Must Hurt, Or Be Hurt.

No One Had Ever Told Her This Basic Fact: Not Everyone Got To Be Loved.

That’s What You Do For Family. Anything.

Amor Deliria Nervosa. The Deadliest Of All Deadly Things.

Take It From Me: If You Hear The Past Speaking To You, Feel It Tugging Up Your Back And Runing Its Fingers Up Your Spine, The Best Thing To Do-the Only Thing-is Run.

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

Fred Is Officially The Mayor Of Portland Now.

There's Still Always The Possibility That I've Gone Totally, Clinically Cuckoo. But Somehow I Don't Think So Anymore. An Article I Once Read Said That Crazy People Don't Worry About Being Crazy - That's The Whole Problem.

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

Raven Jerks And Stiffens. For A Second, I Think She Is Only Surprised: Her Mouth Goes Round, Her Eyes Wide. Then She Begins Teetering Backward, And I Know That She Is Dead. Falling, Falling, Falling . . .

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

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.

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

That’s A Funny Thing: You Think, When Awful Things Happen, Everything Else Just Stops, Like You Would Forget To Pee And Eat And Get Thirsty, But It’s Not Really True. It’s Like You And Your Body Are Two Separate Things, Like Your Body Is Betraying You, Chugging On, Idiotic And Animal, Craving Water And Sandwiches And Bathroom Breaks While Your World Falls Apart.

Maybe He Sees It On My Face, That Fraction Of A Second When I Let My Guard Down, Because In That Moment His Expression Softens And His Eyes Go Bright As Flame And Even Though I Barely See Him Move, Suddenly He Has Closed The Space Between Us And He’s Wrapping His Warm Hands Over My Shoulders—fingers So Warm And Strong I Almost Cry Out—and Saying, “lena. I Like You, Okay? That’s It. That’s All. I Like You.” His Voice Is So Low And Hypnotic It Reminds Me Of A Song. I Think Of Predators Dropping Silently From Trees: I Think Of Enormous Cats With Glowing Amber Eyes, Just Like His.

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.

Yeah, But Our Choices Are Limited. We Choose From A List That They Chose For Us." She Said. "well, Choices Are Supposed To Be Limited. That's Life" I Snapped

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.

Promise Me We'll Stay Together, Okay? His Eyes Are Once Again The Clear Blue Of A Perfectly Transparent Pool. They Are Eyes To Swim In, To Float In, Forever. "you And Me". "i Promise". I Say. Behind Us The Door Creaks Open, And I Turn Around, Expecting Raven, Just As A Voice Cuts Through The Air: "don't Believe Her.

The Priests And The Scientists Are Right About One Thing: At Our Heart, At Our Base, We Are No Better Than Animals.

As We're Standing There I Realize We're Almost Exactly The Same Height. We Must Look Like The Dark And Light Side Of An Oreo Cookie, And I Think How Just As Easily It Could Have Been The Other Way Around. She Could Be Blocking My Path; I Could Be Trying To Slip Around Her Into The Dark.

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Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

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