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I Don't Just Use Yarn From A Store. I Buy Old Sweaters From Consignment Shops. The Older The Better, And Unravel Them. There Are Countries Of Women In This Scarf/shawl/blanket. Soon It Will Be Big Enough To Keep Me Warm.

-Laurie Halse Anderson

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I Don't Just Use

Laurie Halse Anderson

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I Don't Just Use Yarn From A Store. I Buy Old Sweaters From Consignment Shops. The Older The Better, And Unravel Them. There Are Countries Of Women In This Scarf/shawl/blanket. Soon It Will Be Big Enough To Keep Me Warm.

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I Know My Head Isn't Screwed On Straight. I Want To Leave, Transfer, Warp Myself To Another Galaxy. I Want To Confess Everything, Hand Over The Guilt And Mistake And Anger To Someone Else. There Is A Beast In My Gut, I Can Hear It Scraping Away At The Inside Of My Ribs. Even If I Dump The Memory, It Will Stay With Me, Staining Me. My Closest Is A Good Thing, A Quiet Place That Helps Me Hold These Thoughts Inside My Head Where No One Can Hear Them.

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She Turns To Us, Acts Surprised To See Us, Then Does The Bit With The Back Of The Hand To The Forehead. "you're Lost!" "you're Angry!" "you're In The Wrong School!" "you're In The Wrong Country!" "you're On The Wrong Planet!

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Eating Disorder

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Hannah Was About To Burst With Excitement, Which Would Have Been Disgusting Because She Would Have Sprayed Blood, Guts And Glitter In Every Direction.

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I've Written In Every Imaginable Location; A Repurposed Closet, The Kitchen Table, The Bleachers While My Kids Had Basketball Practice, The Front Seat Of The Car When They Were At Soccer. In Airports. On Trains. In The Break Room When I Was Supposed To Be Wolfing Down Dinner. In The Back Of Classrooms When I Was Supposed To Be Paying Attention.

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Conjugate This: I Cut Class, You Cut Class, He, She, It Cuts Class. We Cut Class, They Cut Class. We All Cut Class. I Cannot Say This In Spanish Because I Did Not Go To Spanish Today. Gracias A Dios. Hasta Luego.

I Knew It!" He Pumps A Fist Into The Air. "you've Fallen In Love With Me. You Want To Have My Babies. We'll Get A Team Of Horses And A Covered Wagon And We'll Journey To South America And Raise Goats.

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I Like Cheeseburgers Too Much To Be A Model.

The Bathroom Door Swings Open. Emma Sees The Blood Painting My Skin And The Red Rivers Carved On My Body. Emma Sees The Wet Knife, Silver And Bone. The Screams Of My Little Sister Shatter Mirrors.

I Am So Sorry. I Wish You Knew Even One Tenth Of One Percent Of How Sorry I Am. ...it Was My Fault. Can I Kill Myself Here, Or Should I Do It Outside, So The Mess On Your Carpet Doesn't Upset Your Mother?

Mr. Freeman: You Are Getting Better At This, But It's Not Good Enough. This Looks Like A Tree,but It Is An Average, Ordinary, Everyday, Boring Tree. Breathe Life Into It. Make It Bend - Trees Are Flexible, So They Don't Snap. Scar It, Give It A Twisted Branch - Perfect Trees Don't Exist. Nothing Is Perfect. Flaws Are Interesting. Be The Tree.

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This Is Not Our Fight', The Old Man Said. 'british Or American, That Is Not The Choice. You Must Choose Your Own Side, Find Your Road Through The Valley Of Darkness That Will Lead You To The River Jordan. . . Look Hard For Your River Jordan, My Child. You'll Find It.

My Face Becomes A Picasso Sketch, My Body Slicing Into Pieces.

I Need A New Friend. I Need A Friend, Period. Not A True Friend, Nothing Close Or Share Clothes Or Sleepover Giggle Giggle Yak Yak. Just A Pseudo-friend, Disposable Friend. Friend As Accessory. Just So I Don't Feel Or Look So Stupid.

I Stuff My Mouth With Old Fabric And Scream Until There Are No Sounds Left Under My Skin.

Rumors Are Spread By Jealous People

Melancholy Held Me Hostage, And The Bees Built A Hive Of Sadness In My Soul.

I Breathe In Slowly. Food Is Life. I Exhale, Take Another Breath. Food Is Life.

Two Days Later, Two Days Before Christmas, I Am Judged Fat And Sane Enough To Be Kicked Out Of The Hospital. The Plan To Send Me Straight Back To New Seasons Won't Work. There Is No Room At The Inn For A Leather Lia-skin Plumped Full Of Messy Things. Not Yet. The Director Promises Dr. Marrigan He'll Have A Bed For Me Next Week. I'm Stable Enough To Go Home Until Then. They All Say I'm Stable.

We Turned Us Into Wintergirls, And When She Tried To Leave, I Pulled Her Back Into The Snow Because I Was Afraid To Be Alone.

I Swallowed The Fear. It’s Always There– Fear– And If You Don’t Stay On Top Of It, You’ll Drown. I Swallowed Again And Stood Tall, Shoulders Broad, Arms Loose. I Was Balanced, Ready To Move. My Body Said, “yeah, You’re Bigger And Stronger, But If You Touch This, I Will Hurt You.

I Want To Tell Him That It's Just A Stupid Car, But Bits Of Me Are Scattered All Over Town; The Graveyard, School, Cassie's Room, The Motel, And Standing In From Of The Sink In My Mother's Kitchen. It Takes Too Much Energy To Gather All The Bits Together, So I Just Sit There And Watch Him Implode.

Nothing Is Perfect. Flaws Are Interesting. Be The Tree.

Everybody Told Me To Be A Man. Nobody Told Me How.

I Don't Say Anything And I Feel Awful. I Tell Somebody And I Feel Worse. I'm Having Trouble Finding A Middle Ground.

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Be Careful What You Wish For. There's Always A Catch.

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Making A Difference

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This Is Where You Can Find Your Soul If You Dare. Where You Can Touch That Part Of You That You've Never Dared Look At Before. Do Not Come Here And Ask Me To Show You How To Draw A Face. Ask Me To Help You Find The Wind.

This Is Where You Can Find Your Soul If You Dare. Where You Can Touch That Part Of You That You've Never Dared Look At Before. Do Not Come Here And Ask Me To Show You How To Draw A Face. Ask Me To Help You Find The Wind.

Picasso.” He Whispers Like A Priest. “picasso. Who Saw The Truth. Who Painted The Truth, Molded It, Ripped From The Earth With Two Angry Hands.

I Have Entered High School With The Wrong Hair, The Wrong Clothes, The Wrong Attitude. And I Don't Have Anyone To Sit With.

I Doubt Trees Are Ever Told To 'be The Screwed-up Ninth-grader.'

Look At The Stupid, Poor People. Look At The Stupid, Poor, Burned-out People. Look At The Stupid, Poor, Burned-out People, Look At Their Dead Baby. It's Death Porn For The Masses.

I Make It Through The First Two Weeks Of School Without A Nuclear Meltdown.

It Doesn't Hurt. Nothing Hurts Except The Small Smiles And Blushes That Flash Across The Room Like Tiny Sparrows.

I Have Ten Bucks In My Pocket - What To Spend It On? French Fries - Ten Dollars' Worth Of French Fries, Ultimate Fantasy.

Dead Girl Walking” The Boys Say In The Halls. “tell Us Your Secrets” The Girls Whisper, One Toilet To Another. "i Am That Girl. I Am The Spaces Between My Thighs, Daylight Shinning Through. I Am The Bones They Want, Wired On A Porcelain Frame.

I Know My Head Isn't Screwed On Straight. I Want To Leave, Transfer, Warp Myself To Another Galaxy. I Want To Confess Everything, Hand Over The Guilt And Mistake And Anger To Someone Else. There Is A Beast In My Gut, I Can Hear It Scraping Away At The Inside Of My Ribs. Even If I Dump The Memory, It Will Stay With Me, Staining Me. My Closest Is A Good Thing, A Quiet Place That Helps Me Hold These Thoughts Inside My Head Where No One Can Hear Them.

I Would Never Be Popular. I Didn't Want To Be; I Liked Being Shy. I'd Never Be The Smartest Or The Hottest Or The Happiest. By Eighth Grade You Start To Figure Out Your Limits.

I Have Never Heard A More Eloquent Silence.

There Is No Safer. There’s Not Even Safe, Never Has Been.

The One Good Thing About Being Kind Of Shy Is That Nobody Bugs You When You Want To Be Left Alone.

Why? You Want To Know Why? Step Into A Tanning Booth And Fry Yourself For Two Or Three Days. After Your Skin Bubbles And Peels Off, Roll In Coarse Salt, Then Pull On Long Underwear Woven From Spun Glass And Razor Wire. Over That Goes Your Regular Clothes, As Long As They Are Tight.

I Can’t Tell Anymore When I’m Asleep And When I’m Awake, Or Which Is Worse.

It Is Easier Not To Say Anything. Shut Your Trap, Button Your Lip, Can It. All That Crap You Hear On Tv About Communication And Expressing Feelings Is A Lie. Nobody Really Wants To Hear What You Have To Say.

Do They Choose To Be So Dense? Were They Born That Way? I Have No Friends. I Have Nothing. I Say Nothing. I Am Nothing.

She Offered Herself To The Big, Bad Wolf And Didn't Scream When He Took The First Bite.

I Picked Up One Of The Books And Flipped Through It. Don't Get Me Wrong, I Like Reading. But Some Books Should Come With Warning Labels: Caution: Contains Characters And Plots Guaranteed To Induce Sleepiness. Do Not Attempt To Operate Heavy Machinery After Ingesting More Than One Chapter. Has Been Known To Cause Blindness, Seizures And A Terminal Loathing Of Literature. Should Only Be Taken Under The Supervision Of A Highly Trained English Teacher. Preferably One Who Grades On The Curve.

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I Want To Go To Sleep And Not Wake Up, But I Don't Want To Die. I Want To Eat Like A Normal Person Eats, But I Need To See My Bones Or I Will Hate Myself Even More And I Might Cut My Heart Out Or Take Every Pill That Was Ever Made.

She Cannot Chain My Soul. Yes, She Could Hurt Me. She'd Already Done So...i Would Bleed, Or Not. Scar, Or Not. Live, Or Not. But She Could Not Hurt My Soul, Not Unless I Gave It To Her.

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I Can See Us, Living In The Woods, Her Wearing That A, Me With A S Maybe, S For Silent, S For Stupid, For Scared. S For Silly. For Shame.

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The Trick To Surviving An Interrogation Is Patience. Don't Offer Up Anything. Don't Explain. Answer The Question And Only The Question That Is Asked So You Don't Accidentally Put Your Head In A Noose.

School Libraries Are The Foundations Of Our Culture – Not Luxuries.

Be Aggressive, Be-be Aggressive! B-e A-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e

I Breathe In Slowly. Food Is Life. I Exhale, Take Another Breath. Food Is Life. And That's The Problem. When You're Alive, People Can Hurt You. It's Easier To Crawl Into A Bone Cage Or A Snowdrift Of Confusion. It's Easier To Lock Everybody Out. But It's A Lie.

When Life Sucks, Read. They Can't Yell At You For That. And If They Do, Then You Can Ignore Them.

This Girl Shivers And Crawls Under The Covers With All Her Clothes On And Falls Into An Overdue Library Book, A Faerie Story With Rats And Marrow And Burning Curses. The Sentences Build A Fence Around Her, A Times Roman 10-point Barricade, To Keep The Thorny Voices In Her Head From Getting Too Close.

This Camp Is A Forge For The Army; It's Testing Our Mettle. Instead Of Heat And Hammer, Our Trials Are Cold And Hunger. Question Is, What Are We Made Of?

You Can Tell A Book Is Real When Your Heart Beats Faster. Real Books Make You Sweat. Cry, If No One Is Looking. Real Books Help You Make Sense Of Your Crazy Life. Real Books Tell It True, Don't Hold Back And Make You Stronger. But Most Of All, Real Books Give You Hope. Because It's Not Always Going To Be Like This And Books-the Good Ones, The Ones-show You How To Make It Better. Now.

Lawyers On Tv Always Tell Their Clients Not To Say Anything. The Cops Say That Thing: 'anything You Say Will Be Used Against You.' Self-incrimination. I Looked It Up. Three-point Vocab Word. So Why Does Everyone Makes Such A Big Hairy Deal About Me Not Talking? Maybe I Don't Want To Incriminate Myself. Maybe I Don't Like The Sound Of My Voice. Maybe I Don't Have Anything To Say.

This Is Not Our Fight', The Old Man Said. 'british Or American, That Is Not The Choice. You Must Choose Your Own Side, Find Your Road Through The Valley Of Darkness That Will Lead You To The River Jordan. . . Look Hard For Your River Jordan, My Child. You'll Find It.

I Pull My Lower Lip All The Way In Between My Teeth. If I Try Hard Enough, Maybe I Can Gobble My Whole Self This Way.... I Didn't Try Hard Enough To Swallow Myself.

My English Teacher Has No Face. She Has Uncombed Stringy Hair That Droops On Her Shoulders. The Hair Is Black From Her Part To Her Ears And Then Neon Orange To The Frizzy Ends. I Can't Decide If She Had Pissed Off Her Hairdresser Or Is Morphing Into A Monarch Butterfly. I Call Her Hairwoman.

I Needed To Hear The World But Didn't Want The World To Know I Was Listening.

I Watch Some Kids Ask The Cafeteria Ladies To Sign Their Books. What Do They Write: "hope Your Chicken Patties Never Bleed?" Or, Maybe, "may Your Jell-o Always Wiggle?

We Tilt Our Heads Back And Open Wide. The Snow Drifts Into Our Zombie Mouths Crawling With Grease And Curses And Tobacco Flakes And Cavities And Boyfriend/girlfriend Juice, The Stain Of Lies. For One Moment We Are Not Failed Tests And Broken Condoms And Cheating On Essays; We Are Crayons And Lunch Boxes And Swinging So High Our Sneakers Punch Holes In The Clouds. For One Breath Everything Feels Better. Then It Melts. The Bus Drivers Rev Their Engines And The Ice Cloud Shatters. Everyone Shuffles Forward. They Don't Know What Just Happened. They Can't Remember.

There's No Point In Asking Why, Even Though Everybody Will. I Know Why. The Harder Question Is "why Not?" I Can't Believe She Ran Out Of Answers Before I Did.

Emma Is A Mattress Who Got Thrown Off The Truck When Her Parents Split Up. It's Not Like You Can Blame A Mattress When People Don't Tie It Down Tight Enough.

Why Are You Being So Mean?" "friends Tell Friends The Truth." "yeah, But Not To Hurt, To Help.

I Like Cheeseburgers Too Much To Be A Model.

There Is Something About Christmas That Requires A Rug Rat. Little Kids Make Christmas Fun. I Wonder If Could Rent One For The Holidays. When I Was Tiny We Would By A Real Tree And Stay Up Late Drinking Hot Chocolate And Finding Just The Right Place For The Special Decorations. It Seems Like My Parents Gave Up The Magic When I Figured Out The Santa Lie. Maybe I Shouldn't Have Told Them I Knew Where The Presents Really Came From. It Broke Their Hearts.

Didn't Help To Ponder Things That Were Forever Gone. It Only Made A Body Restless And Fill Up With Bees, All Wanting To Sting Something.

I Knew How Much It Hurt To Be The Daughter Of People Who Can't See You, Not Even If You Are Standing In Front Of Them Stomping Your Feet.

I Handed My Tools. The Two Of Them Reached Down To Help Me Out Of The Crater I'd Dug. ''isn't That A Little Deep?'' Yoda Asked. ''it'll Help The Roots Get Established,'' I Explained. ''established Where? China?

I Live In The Borderlands. The Word Ghost Sounds Like Memory. The Word Therapy Means Exorcism. My Visions Echo And Multiplymultiply. I Don't Know How To Figure Out What They Mean. I Can't Tell Where They Start Or If They Will End. But I Know This. If They Shrink My Head Any More, Or Float Me Away On An Ocean Of Pills, I Will Never Return.

They Yell At Me Because I Can't See What They See. Nobody Can Explain To Me Why My Eyes Work Different Than Theirs.

Cold And Silence. Nothing Quieter Than Snow. The Sky Screams To Deliver It, A Hundred Banshees Flying On The Edge Of The Blizzard. But Once The Snow Covers The Ground, It Hushes As Still As My Heart.

Didn't Help To Ponder Things That Were Forever Gone. It Only Made A Body Restless And Fill Up With Bees, All Wanting To Sting Something.

This Girl Shivers And Crawls Under The Covers With All Her Clothes On And Falls Into An Overdue Library Book, A Faerie Story With Rats And Marrow And Burning Curses. The Sentences Build A Fence Around Her, A Times Roman 10-point Barricade, To Keep The Thorny Voices In Her Head From Getting Too Close.

I Picked Up One Of The Books And Flipped Through It. Don't Get Me Wrong, I Like Reading. But Some Books Should Come With Warning Labels: Caution: Contains Characters And Plots Guaranteed To Induce Sleepiness. Do Not Attempt To Operate Heavy Machinery After Ingesting More Than One Chapter. Has Been Known To Cause Blindness, Seizures And A Terminal Loathing Of Literature. Should Only Be Taken Under The Supervision Of A Highly Trained English Teacher. Preferably One Who Grades On The Curve.

It Is My First Morning Of High School. I Have Seven New Notebooks, A Skirt I Hate, And A Stomachache.

Everybody Told Me To Be A Man. Nobody Told Me How.

What Do You Miss About Being Alive?" The Sound Of My Mom Singing, A Little Off-key. The Way My Dad Went To All My Swim Meets And I Could Hear His Whistle When My Head Was Underwater, Even If He Did Yell At Me Afterward For Not Trying Harder. I Miss Going To The Library. I Miss The Smell Of Clothes Fresh Out Of The Dryer. I Miss Diving Off The Highest Board And Nailing The Landing. I Miss Waffles" - P. 272.

I Want To Be In Fifth Grade Again. Now, That Is A Deep Dark Secret, Almost As Big As The Other One. Fifth Grade Was Easy -- Old Enough To Play Outside Without Mom, Too Young To Go Off The Block. The Perfect Leash Length.

I Keep Thinking That If I Could Just Unzip My Skin, Step Out Of This Body, Then I Would See Who I Really Am.“ She Nods Her Head Slowly. „what Do You Think You‘d Look Like?” “smaller, For A Start.

Gym Should Be Illegal. It's Humiliating.

Gym Should Be Illegal. It's Humiliating.

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