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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.

-Lauren Oliver

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Grief Is Like Sinking,

Lauren Oliver

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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.

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He Looked At Me Like I Was Beautiful.

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

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The Mark Of The Procedure. A Real One. Lu Is Cured.

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

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

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.

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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.

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Growing Stronger

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When You Love Someone

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.

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

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

Not Gray, Exactly. Right Before The Sun Rises There's A Moment When The Whole Sky Goes This Pale Nothing Color-not Really Gray But Sort Of, Or Sort Of White, And I've Always Really Liked It Because It Reminds Me Of Waiting For Something Good To Happen.

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

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

You Don't Reach Points In Life At Which Everything Is Sorted Out For Us. I Believe In Endings That Should Suggest Our Stories Always Continue.

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

Love, The Deadliest Of All Things: It Kills You Both When You Have It And When You Don't. But That Isn't It, Exactly. The Condemner And The Condemned. The Executioner; The Blade; The Last-minute Reprieve; The Gasping Breath And The Rolling Sky Above You And The Thank You, Thank You, Thank You God. Love: It Will Kill You And Save You, Both.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Music, I Think, He Makes Me Feel Like Music

He Makes Me Feel

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.

My Former People Were Not Totally Wrong. Love Is A Kind Of Possession. It’s A Poison. And If Alex No Longer Loves Me, I Can’t Bear To Think That He Might Love Somebody Else.

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

I'm Overwhelmed With Sadness For Everything That Was Lost, And Filled With Anger Toward The People Who Took It Away. My People-or At Least, My Old People. I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore, Or Where I Belong. That's Not Totally True...i Know I Belong With Alex.

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.

This Is The Strange Way Of The World, That People Who Simply Want To Love Are Instead Forced To Become Warriors.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Falling In Love

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

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.

He Is No Longer Mine To Lose, But The Grief Is There, A Gnawing Sense Of Disbelief.

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.

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

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Ursula K. Le Guin

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