Background Image

...

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.

-Lauren Oliver

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Both Of Us Will

Lauren Oliver

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Lauren Oliver

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

But You Can Build A Future Out Of Anything. A Scrap, A Flicker. The Desire To Go Forward, Slowly, One Foot At A Time. You Can Build An Airy City Out Of Ruins.

Waste Today, Want Tomorrow.

Old Words; Words That Nearly Brought Me To My Knees. Live Free Or Die

This Is What I Want. This Is The Only Thing I've Ever Wanted. Everything Else—every Single Second Of Every Single Day That Has Come Before This Very Moment, This Kiss—has Meant Nothing.

For A Moment, My Heart Aches For Him. I Should Never Have Asked Him To Join Me Here; I Should Never Have Asked Him To Cross.

Everyone Just Wasting Time Because They Have So Much Of It To Waste, Minutes Slipping By On Who's With Who And Did You Hear.

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.

Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

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

That's What Time Does: We Stand Stubbornly Like Rocks While It Flows All Around Us, Believing That We Are Immutable - And All The Time We're Being Carved, And Shaped, And Whittled Away.

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.

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.

It's Connecticut: Being Like The People Around You Is The Whole Point.

Like I've Been Sketched By An Amateur Artist: If You Don't Look Too Closely, It's All Right, But Start Focusing And All The Smudges And Mistakes Become Really Obvious.

Then I Think Of The Dark, And The Lights, And The Roaring, And Juliet, And Before I Can Think Of Anything Else, I Fight The Final Few Steps To The Door And Step Out Into The Cold, Where The Rain Is Still Coming Down Like Shards Of Moonlight, Or Like Steel.

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.

I Cry For Everything I Abandoned And Because I, Too, Have Been Left Behind -- By Alex, By My Mom, By Time That Has Cut Through Our Worlds And Separated Us.

We Leave Pippa Behind, Standing In The Dark, Teeming Bowels Of The Camp, While The Sun Begins To Stain The Sky Electric, And From All Sides The Guns Draw Closer.

Somewhere In The Endless Spinning Of Eternity That One, Tiny, Fraction Of A Second Where Our Lips Met Is Lost Forever.

Don't Worry About What You're Writing Or Whether It's Good Or Even Whether It Makes Sense.

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.

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

Now I'd Rather Be Infected With Love For The Tiniest Sliver Of A Second Than Live A Hundred Years Smothered By A Lie.

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.

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.

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

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.

That's All I Want. Just You And Me. Always.

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.

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

He Looked At Me Like I Was Beautiful.

Requiem Has Been Controversial Because People Dont Feel I Gave It Closure.

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

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

I Didn’t Know It Would Be Like This,” He Says In A Whisper. And Then: “i’m Scared.

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

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.

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

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

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

I Remember A Story I Once Heard About Drowning: That When You Fall Into Cold Water It's Not That You Drown Right Away But That The Cold Disorients You And Makes You Think That Down Is Up And Up Is Down, So You May Be Swimming, Swimming, Swimming For Your Life In The Wrong Direction, All The Way Toward The Bottom Until You Sink. That's How I Feel, As Though Everything Has Been Turned Around.

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

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.

Hearts Are Fragile Things. That's Why You Have To Be So Careful.

Nothing Exists But Him.

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

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.

Unhappiness Is Bondage; Therefore, Happiness Is Freedom.

Until, One Day, She Wasn’t.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

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.

You Have To Understand. I Wasn't Just Thinking Of Me. I Was Thinking Of Her, Too.

Thinking Of Her

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.

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

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.

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.

Live Free Or Die. Four Words. Thirteen Letters. Ridges, Bumps, Swirls Under My Fingertips. Another Story. We Cling Tightly To It, And Our Belief Turns It To Truth.

That's The Beauty Of The Cure. No One Mentions Those Lost, Hot Days In The Field, When Thomas Kissed Rachel's Tears Away And Invented Worlds Just So He Could Promise Them To Her, When She Tore The Skin Off Her Own Arm At The Thought Of Living Without Him.

I Was Glad When The Invalids Were Executed

Despite The Fact That Raven And Tack Are Often Fighting, It's Impossible To Imagine One Without The Other. They Are Like Two Plants That Have Grown Around Each Other - They Strangle And Squeeze And Support At The Same Time.

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.

Now, After So Many Years, I Understand What The Coldness Was And Where It Came From—this Sense That Everything Is Lost, And Worthless, And Meaningless.

My Heart Is Drumming In My Chest So Hard It Aches, But It's The Good Kind Of Ache, Like The Feeling You Get On The First Real Day Of Autumn, When The Air Is Crisp And The Leaves Are All Flaring At The Edges And The Wind Smells Just Vaguely Of Smoke - Like The End And The Beginning Of Something All At Once.

The Deadliest Of All Deadly Things: It Kills You Both When You Have It And When You Don’t.

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.

We All Need Mantras, I Guess - Stories We Tell Ourselves To Keep Us Going.

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

I’m Not The Hana Everyone Told Me I Would Be After My Cure.

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

Something Must Die So That Others Can Live.

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

Hate Isn’t The Most Dangerous Thing, He’d Said. Indifference Is.

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

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

I’ve Always Hated Being Looked At.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

I Love You. Remember. They Cannot Take It

Sometimes I'm Afraid To Go To Sleep Because Of What I'm Leaving Behind.

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.

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.

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.

I Think Of All The Thousands Of Billions Of Steps And Missteps And Chances And Coincidences That Have Brought Me Here. Brought You Here, And It Feels Like The Biggest Miracle In The World.

Poetry Isn't Like Any Writing I've Ever Heard Before. I Don't Understand All Of It, Just Bits Of Images, Sentences That Appear Half-finished, All Fluttering Together Like Brightly Colored Ribbons In The Wind.

I Said, I Prefer The Ocean When It's Gray. Or Not Really Gray. A Pale, In-between Color. It Reminds Me Of Waiting For Something Good To Happen.

That's The Thing: We Didn't Really Care. A World Without Love Is Also A World Without Stakes.

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.

An Itchy Feeling Began To Work Its Way Through My Body, As Though A Thousand Mosquitoes Were Circulating Through My Blood, Biting Me From The Inside, Making Me Want To Scream, Jump, Squirm. I Ran.

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.

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.

I Know Some Of You Are Thinking Maybe I Deserved It. But Before You Start Pointing Fringers, Let Me Ask You Is What I Did Really So Bad? So Bad I Deserved To Die? So Bad I Deserved To Die Like That? Is What I Did Really Much Worse Then What Anybody Else Does? Is It Really So Much Worse Than What You Do?

This Is The First Day Of My New Beginning. From Now On I'm Going To Do Things Right. I'm Going To Be A Different Person, A Good Person. I'm Going To Be The Kind Of Person Who Would Be Remembered Well, Not Just Remembered.

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

People Are Like Ants: Just A Few Of Them Give All The Orders. And Most Of Them Spend Their Lives Getting Squashed.

And Then, Just At That Moment, When I'm No Longer Sure If I'm Dreaming Or Awake Or Walking Some Valley In Between Where Everything You Wish For Comes True, I Feel The Flutter Of His Lips On Mine.

I Think Of The Quietness Of Julian's Voice As He Said I Love You, The Steadiness Of His Rib Cage Rising And Falling Against My Back, As We Sleep.i Love You, Julian. But The Words Don't Come.

I Still Wanted To Know Why. As Though Somebody Was Going To Answer That For Me, As Though Any Answer Would Be Satisfying.

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

You Must Hurt, Or Be Hurt.

There's That Confidence Again, That Semi-infuriating Easiness Of His, The Tilt Of His Head And The Smile. But Today It's Not Infuriating. Today I Like It, Feel Like It's Somehow Rubbing Off On Me, Like If I Was Around Him Enough I Would Never Feel Awkward Or Frightened Or Insecure.

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.

Do The Other Kids Make Fun Of You? For How You Talk?' 'sometimes.' 'so Why Don't You Do Something About It? You Could Learn To Talk Differently, You Know.' But This Is My Voice. How Would You Be Able To Tell When I Was Talking?

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

Anything, Anything Is Possible, If You Can Just See The Sky.

Anything Is Possible

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.

But From The Beginning, I Knew That In A World Where Destiny Was Dead, I Was Destined, Forever, To Love Him. Even Though He Didn't - Though He Couldn't - Ever Love Me Back.

For The First Time In My Life I've Done Something For Me And By Choice And Not Because Somebody Told Me It Was Good Or Bad.

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

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.

I've Never Really Thought About It Before, But It's A Miracle How Many Kinds Of Light There Are In The World, How Many Skies: The Pale Brightness Of Spring, When It Feels Like The Hole World's Blushing; The Lush, Bright Boldness Of A July Noon; Purple Storm Skies And A Green Queasiness Just Before Lightning Strikes And Crazy Multicolored Sunsets That Look Like Someone's Acid Trip.

They Didn’t Get Me, I Should Have Said. They Saved Me.

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

It Strikes Me How Strange People Are. You Can See Them Every Day - You Can Think You Know Them - And Then You Fшnd Out You Hardly Know Them At All.

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.

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

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

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

Po Swirled Upward From Where It Had Been Sitting, And Floated Over To The Window. "when You Go Swimming And You Put Your Head Under The Water," Po Said, "and Everything Is Strange And Underwater-sounding, And Strange And Underwater-looking, You Don't Miss The Air Do You? You Don't Miss The Above-water Sounds And The Above-water Look. It's Just Different." "true." Liesl Was Quiet For A Moment. Then She Added, "but I Bet You'd Miss It If You Were Drowning. I Bet You'd Really Miss The Air Then."

Nobody Ever Said Life Was Fair.

The Worst Is Knowing I Can't Tell Anybody What's Happening -or What's Happened- To Me. Not Even My Mom.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

That's The Thing About Best Friends. That's What They Do. They Keep You From Spinning Off The Edge.

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.

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.

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.

My Stomach Gets That Hollowed-out Feeling. It's Amazing How Words Can Do That, Just Shred Your Insides Apart.

But How Could Anyone Who's Ever Seen A Summer - Big Explosion Of Green And Skies Lit Up Electric With Splashy Sunsets, A Riot Of Flowers And Wind That Smells Like Honey - Pick The Snow?

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.

In My Dream I Know I Am Falling. But There Is No Up Or Down, No Walls Or Sides Or Ceilings, Just The Sensation Of Cold And Darkness Everywhere. I Am So Scared I Could Scream. But When I Open My Mouth, Nothing Happens. And I Wonder If You Fall Forever And Never Touch Down, Is It Really Still Falling? I Think I Will Fall Forever.

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

Perfection Is A Promise, And A Reassurance That We Are Not Wrong.

It Won't Matter If Nobody Ever Thinks I'm Pretty (although Sometimes I Wish, Just For A Second, That Somebody Would)

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

"kent?" I Say, And My Voice Seems To Have To Rise From Inside The Fog, Taking Forever To Get From My Brain To My Mouth. "yeah?" "promise You'll Stay Here With Me?" I Say. "i Promise," He Whispers.

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 . . .

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.

His Secret Name, Which Belongs To Me, And To Him, And To No One Else.

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.

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.

There's Always Some Relief In Giving Up.

Time Jumps. It Leaps. It Pours Away Like Water Through Fingers.

The Wilds Aren't Safe Anymore.

For A Second I Think About How Easy It Would Be To Pass Back To The Other Side, To Walk Straight Into The Laboratories And Offer Myself Up To The Surgeons. You Were Right; I Was Wrong. Get It Out.

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

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”.

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

And Even Though I'm Standing In The Middle Of The Biggest Crowd I've Ever Seen In My Life, I Suddenly Feel Very Alone.

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.

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.

It Occurs To Me That For A Long Time She Has Been Doing Her Own Version Of Resisting.

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.

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.

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

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

Maybe Next Time, But Probably Not.

Maybe Next Time

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

You See, We Didn't Know.

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.

Welcome To The Free World. We Give People The Power To Choose. They Can Even Choose The Wrong Thing. Beautiful, Isn't It?

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.

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.

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.

I Didn't Realize Then What A Privilege That Was: To Be Bored With Your Best Friend; To Have Time To Waste.

I Know The Past Will Drag You Backward And Down, Have You Snatching At Whispers Of Wind And The Gibberish Of Trees Rubbing Together, Trying To Decipher Some Code, Trying To Piece Together What Was Broken. It's Hopeless. The Past Is Nothing But A Weight. It Will Build Inside You Like A Stone.

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.

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

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

You Can't Tell Me What To Feel

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

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.

It Seemed A Lifetime Ago I'd Lain In Bed With Lena And Felt Her Breath Tickling My Chin And Held Her While She Slept, Felt Her Heart Beating Through Her Skin To Mine. It Was A Lifetime Ago. Everything Was Different.

No Guest Rooms.” I Shake My Head Resolutely. “i Want To Be In A Room Room. A Lived-in Room.

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.

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.

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

I Wonder If It's Ever Really Possible To Know The Truth About Someone Else, Or If The Best We Can Do Is Just Stumble Into Each Other, Heads Down, Hoping To Avoid Collision. I...wonder How Many People Are Clutching Secrets Like Little Fists, Little Rocks Sitting In The Pits Of Their Stomachs. All Of Them, Maybe.

The Most Dangerous Sicknesses Are Those That Make Us Believe We Are Well

I'd Rather Die My Way Than Live Yours.

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

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

Like I Am Alice In The Wonderland And Have Gotten Too Big For The Room.

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

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

Telling The Truth

Are You Ever Afraid To Go To Sleep? Afraid Of What Comes Next?” He Smiles A Sad Little Smile And I Swear It’s Like He Knows. “sometimes I’m Afraid Of What I’m Leaving Behind,” He Says.

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

Because?' I Prompt 'because I'm Sorry, But I Can't Help It, And I Really Need To Kiss You Right Now.

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

That Is The Strangest Thing About The World: How It Looks So Different From Every Point Of View.

Dystopian Novels Help People Process Their Fears About What The Future Might Look Like; Further, They Usually Show That There Is Always Hope, Even In The Bleakest Future.

Trending Author

Karl Pilkington

Robert H. Schuller

Marilyn Vos Savant

Category