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Everything Looks Stark And Vivid And Frozen, As Though Drawn Precisely And Outlined In Ink - Parents' Smiles Frozen, Camera Flashes Blinding, Mouths Open And White Teeth Glinstening, Dark Glossy Hair And Deep Blue Sky And Unrelenting Light, Everyone Drowning In Light - Everything So Clear And Perfect I'm Sure It Must Already Be A Memory, Or A Dream.

-Lauren Oliver

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Everything Looks Stark And

Lauren Oliver

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Everything Looks Stark And Vivid And Frozen, As Though Drawn Precisely And Outlined In Ink - Parents' Smiles Frozen, Camera Flashes Blinding, Mouths Open And White Teeth Glinstening, Dark Glossy Hair And Deep Blue Sky And Unrelenting Light, Everyone Drowning In Light - Everything So Clear And Perfect I'm Sure It Must Already Be A Memory, Or A Dream.

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I Can Admit, Now, That I Must Have Loved Lena. Not In An Unnatural Way, But My Feelings For Her Must Have Been A Kind Of Sickness. How Can Someone Have The Power To Shatter You To Dust--and Also To Make You Feel So Whole?

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.

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

I Keep Having The Urge To Cross My Hands Over My Chest, To Cover Up My Breasts, To Hide. I'm Suddenly Aware Of How Pale I Look In The Sunshine, And How Many Moles I Have Spotting Up And Down My Chest, And I Just Know He's Looking At Me Thinking I'm Wrong Or Deformed. But The He Breathes, 'beautiful' And When His Eyes Meet Mine I Know That He Really, Truly Means It.

Maybe This Is The Secret To Talking To Boys--maybe You Just Have To Be Angry All The Time.

Something Must Die So That Others Can Live.

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

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.

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.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Are You Sure That Being Like Everybody Else Will Make You Happy?" "i Don't Know Any Other Way." "let Me Show You." And Then We're Kissing. Or At Least, I Think We're Kissing—i've Only Seen It Done A Couple Of Times, Quick Closed-mouth Pecks At Weddings Or On Formal Occasions. 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.

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

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

It Was As Though The Darkness Was A Sheet Of Raw Cookie Dough And Someone Had Just Taken A Cookie Cutter And Made A Child-sized Shape Out Of It.

We Should Be Protected From The People Who Will Leave Us In The End, From All The People Who Will Disappear Or Forget Us.

Popularity's A Weird Thing. You Can't Really Define It, And It's Not Cool To Talk About, But You Know It When You See It. Like A Lazy Eye, Or Porn.

I'd Rather Die My Way Than Live Yours.

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.

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

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.

Maybe, The Hope Said. Maybe.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It Is A Beautiful World For The People Who Get To Play The Fist.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Of All The Miracles Po Had Seen In The Time And Space Of Its Death, Po Thought This--the Absorption Of Another, The Carrying Of It--was The Most Bewildering And Remarkable Of All. Whenever Bundle Separated Again, Po Was Left With An Ache Of Sadness That Reminded The Ghost Of The Body It Had Left Behind.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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..." ♥

In One Of The Tents, Julian Is Sleeping. And In Another: Alex

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

So Many Things Become Beautiful When You Really Look.

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.

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.

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

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).

Someday She Will Be Saved, And The Past And All Its Pain Will Be Rendered As Smoothly Palatable As The Food We Spoon To Our Babies.

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

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.

Chance. Stupid, Dumb, Blind Chance. Just A Part Of The Strange Mechanism Of The World, With Its Fits And Coughs And Starts And Random Collisions.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Hope Keeps You Alive.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

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

But That's The Beauty Of Life: Time Is Yours To Keep And To Change. Just A Few Minutes Can Be Sufficient To Carve A New Road, A New Track. Just A Few Minutes, And The Void Is Kept At Bay. You Will Live Forever With That New Road Inside Of You, Stretching Away To A Place Suggested, Barely, On The Horizon. For The Shortest Time, Shorter Than The Shortest Second's Breath, You Get To Stand Up To Infinity. But Eventually, And Always, Infinity Wins.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Amor Deliria Nervosa. The Deadliest Of All Deadly Things.

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.

That's The Thing About Faith. It Works.

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.

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.

It's Like High School Holds Two Different Worlds, Revolving Around Each Other An Never Touching; The Haves And The Have-nots. I Guess It's A Good Thing. High School Is Supposed To Prepare You For The Real World, After All.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried. I Am In Water The Tawny Color Of Kicked-up Dirt. Every Breath Is Full Of Choking. There Is Nothing To Hold On To, No Sides, No Way To Claw Myself Up. There Is Nothing To Do But Let Go. Let Go. Feel The Weight All Around You, Feel The Squeezing Of Your Lungs, The Slow, Low Pressure. Let Yourself Go Deeper. There Is Nothing But Bottom. There Is Nothing But The Taste Of Metal, And The Echoes Of Old Things, And Days That Look Like Darkness.

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

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.

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.

Waste Today, Want Tomorrow.

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

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 There Are Many Of Us Out There, More Than You Think. People Who Refuse To Stop Believing. People Who Refuse To Come To Earth. People Who Love In A World Without Walls, People Who Love Into Hate, Into Refusal, Against Hope, And Without Fear. I Love You. Remember. They Cannot Take It.

I Hate Both Of My Parents Right Now: For Sitting Quietly In Our House, While Out In The Darkness My Heart Was Beating Away All Of The Seconds Of My Life, Ticking Them Off One By One Until My Time Was Up; For Letting The Thread Between Us Stretch So Far And So Thin That The Moment It Was Severed For Good They Didn't Even Feel It.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Second Time My World Exploded, It Was Also Because Of A Word. A Word That Worked Its Way Out Of My Throat And Danced Onto And Out Of My Lips Before I Could Think About It, Or Stop It. The Question Was: Will You Meet Me Tomorrow? And The Word Was: Yes.

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.

The Only Thing Worse Than Having No Friends Is Being Pitied For Having No Friends.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Sometimes I Feel As Though There Are Two Me's, One Coasting Directly On Top Of The Other: The Superficial Me, Who Nods When She's Supposed To Nod And Says What She's Supposed To Say, And Some Other, Deeper Part, The Part That Worries And Dreams... Most Of The Time They Move Along In Sync And I Hardly Notice The Split, But Sometimes It Feels As Though I'm Two Whole Different People And I Could Rip Apart At Any Second.

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

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

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

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.

But Hope Got In, No Matter How Hard And Fast I Tried To Stomp It Out. Like These Tiny Fire Ants We Used To Get In Portland. No Matter How Fast You Liked Them, There Were Always More, A Steady Stream Of Them, Resistant, Ever-multiplying. Maybe, The Hope Said. Maybe.

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

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

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

There Are Some Losses We Never Get Over.

Sometimes I Feel Like She Deserves A Best Friend Who Is Just A Little More Special.

He Was Still In Love With You, Anyway.

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

Music, I Think, He Makes Me Feel Like Music

He Makes Me Feel

He Looked At Me Like I Was Beautiful.

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

But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

"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.

Mama, Mama, Put Me To Bed I Won’t Make It Home, I’m Already Half-dead I Met An Invalid, And Fell For His Art He Showed Me His Smile, And Went Straight For My Heart.

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.

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

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

You Can Build Walls All The Way To The Sky And I Will Find A Way To Fly Above Them.

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.

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

I Start To Back Away Before I Do Something Wildly Inappropriate, Like Jump On Top Of Him.

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.

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

And Now I Realize Lindsay's Not Fearless. She's Terrified. She's Terrified That People Will Find Out She's Faking, Bullshitting Her Way Through Life, Pretending To Have Everything Together When Really She's Just Floundering Like The Rest Of Us. Lindsay, Who Will Bite At You If You Even Look In Her Direction The Wrong Way, Like On Of Those Tiny Attack Dogs That Are Always Barking And Snapping In The Air Before They're Jerked Backward On The Chains That Keep Them In One Place.

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

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

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.

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

When I’m Running, There’s Always This Split Second When The Pain Is Ripping Through Me And I Can Hardly Breathe And All I See Is Color And Blur—and In That Split Second, Right As The Pain Crests, And Becomes Too Much, And There’s A Whiteness Going Through Me, I See Something To My Left, A Flicker Of Color […]—and I Know Then, Too, That If I Only Turn My Head He’ll Be There, Laughing, Watching Me, And Holding Out His Arms. I Don’t Ever Turn My Head To Look, Of Course. But One Day I Will. One Day I Will, And He’ll Be Back, And Everything Will Be Okay. And Until Then: I Run.

I Will Make A Pact With You: I Will Do It If You Will Do It, Always And Forever. Take Down The Walls.

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

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge. That's What It Is: An Edge; A Razor. It Draws Up Through The Center Of Your Life, Cutting Everything In Two. Before And After. The Rest Of The World Falls Away On Either Side.

He Is Looking At Me Through The Smoke, Across The Fence. He Never Takes His Eyes Off Me. His Hair Is A Crown Of Leaves, Of Thorns, Of Flames. His Eyes Are Blazing With Light, More Light Than All The Lights In Every City In The Whole World, More Light Than We Could Ever Invent If We Had Ten Thousand Billion Years.

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.

We Wanted The Freedom To Love. We Wanted The Freedom To Choose. Now We Have To Fight For It.

Fighting For Love

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.

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

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 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.

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.

A Good Friend Keeps Your Secrets For You. A Best Friend Helps You Keep Your Own Secrets.

Keeping Secrets

Best Kept Secrets

I'm Mesmerized By The Way His Fingers Move Confidently Along Her Skin, As Though Her Body Is His To Reat And Touch And Tend To. She Was Mine Before She Was Yours: The Words Are There, Unexpectedly, Surging From My Throat To My Tongue. I Swallow Them Back.

I Used To Think That's What Love Was: Knowing Someone So Well He Was Like A Part Of You.

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

The Sparrows Jumped Before They Knew How To Fly, And They Learned To Fly Only Because They Had Jumped.

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.

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.

Everything Ends, People Move On, They Don't Look Back. It's How They Should Be.

I Close My Eyes. An Image Flashes—emerging From The Van With Julian After Our Escape From New York City; Believing, In That Moment, That We Had Escaped The Worst, That Life Would Begin Again For Us. Instead Life Has Only Grown Harder.

I Think Of Grace And Feel A Sharp Pain In My Chest.

....love And Desire Enjoy A Symbiotic Relationship, Meaning That One Cannot Exist Without The Other. Desire Is An Enemy To Contentment; Desire Is Illness, A Feverish Brain. Who Can Be Considered Healthy Who Wants? The Very Word Want Suggests A Lack, An Impoverishment, And That Is What Desire Is: An Impoverishment Of The Brain, A Flaw, A Mistake.

You See, We Didn't Know.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried.

Everything Looks Stark And Vivid And Frozen, As Though Drawn Precisely And Outlined In Ink - Parents' Smiles Frozen, Camera Flashes Blinding, Mouths Open And White Teeth Glinstening, Dark Glossy Hair And Deep Blue Sky And Unrelenting Light, Everyone Drowning In Light - Everything So Clear And Perfect I'm Sure It Must Already Be A Memory, Or A Dream.

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.

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.

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.

They Say That The Cure For Love Will Make Me Happy And Safe Forever. And I’ve Always Believed Them. Until Now. Now Everything Has Changed. Now, I’d Rather Be Infected With Love For The Tiniest Sliver Of A Second Than Live A Hundred Years Smothered By A Lie

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

...and Once At Hana's House, When We Stole Some Blackberry Liqueur From Her Parents' Liquor Cabinet And Drank Until The Ceiling Started Spinning Overhead. Hana Was Laughing And Giggling, But I Didn't Like It, Didn't Like The Sweet Sick Taste In My Mouth Or The Way My Thoughts Seemed To Break Apart Like A Mist In The Sun.

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--

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).

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.

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.

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

I Remember Lena's Expression When He Knocked On The Door; And How Alex Had Looked At Her When She Finally Let Him Into The Storeroom. I Remember Exactly What He Was Wearing, Too, And The Mess Of His Hair, The Sneakers With Their Blue-tinged Laces. His Right Shoe Was Untied. He Didn't Notice. He Didn't Notice Anything But Lena.

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