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I Had Made It Somewhere Special, And I'd Gotten There All On My Own. Nobody Had Given It To Me. Nobody Had Told Me To Do It. I'd Climbed And Climbed And Climbed, And This Was My Reward. To Watch Over The World, And To Be Alone With Myself. That, I Found, Was What I Needed.

-David Levithan

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I Had Made It

David Levithan

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I Had Made It Somewhere Special, And I'd Gotten There All On My Own. Nobody Had Given It To Me. Nobody Had Told Me To Do It. I'd Climbed And Climbed And Climbed, And This Was My Reward. To Watch Over The World, And To Be Alone With Myself. That, I Found, Was What I Needed.

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This Is What You Do Now To Give Your Day Topography--scan The Boxes, Read The News, See The Chain Of Your Friends Reporting About Themselves, Take The 140-character Expository Bursts And Sift Through For The Information You Need. It's A Highly Deceptive World, One That Constantly Asks You To Comment But Doesn't Really Care What You Have To Say. The Illusion Of Participation Can Sometimes Lead To Participation. But More Often Than Not, It Only Leads To More Illusion, Dressed In The Guise Of Reality.

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He Has No Idea How Beautiful The Ordinary Becomes Once It Disappears.

If You Zoom Close-if You Get Really Close To Someone, If You Really Get Close To Yourself-then You Lose The Other Person, You Lose Yourself Entirely. You Get So Close You Can't See Anything Anymore.

Losing Yourself

You Like Him Because He's A Lost Boy. Believe Me, I've Seen It Happen Before. But Do You Know What Happens To Girls Who Love Lost Boys? They Become Lost Themselves. Without Fail.

I'm Not A Very Happy Person," I Told Him."but Sometimes I Can Trick Myself Into Thinking I Am.

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You Know What’s A Great Metaphor For Love? Sleeping Beauty. Because You Have To Plow Through This Incredible Thicket Of Thorns In Order To Get To Beauty, And Even Then, When You Get There, You Still Have To Wake Her Up. — Tiny Cooper

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I Notice You, I Want To Say. Even When No One Else Does, I Do. I Will.

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I Hate The Way You Talk To Me, And The Way You Cut Your Hair. I Hate The Way You Drive My Car. I Hate It When You Stare. I Hate Your Big Dumb Combat Boots, And The Way You Read My Mind. I Hate You So Much It Makes Me Sick; It Even Makes Me Rhyme. I Hate It, I Hate The Way You're Always Right. I Hate It When You Lie. I Hate It When You Make Me Laugh, Even Worse When You Make Me Cry. I Hate It When You're Not Around, And The Fact That You Didn't Call. But Mostly I Hate The Way I Don't Hate You. Not Even Close, Not Even A Little Bit, Not Even At All.

No, Really,' I Said. 'i Think She's Great. And I Honestly Like Her About Twenty More Times Now Than I Did When We Were Dating. But Love Needs To Have A Future. And Sofia And I Don't Have A Future. We've Just Had A Good Time Sharing The Present, That's All.

I Don't Even Know What I'm Looking For, Although I Hope I'll Know It If I Find It Along The Way. Sometimes I Want To Simplify My Life Into A Simple Bare Thing. And Other Times I Want To Complicate It So Thoroughly That Everything I Touch Will Become Bound In Some Way To Me. I've Become Quite Aware Of My Contradictions, But There's No True Resolution In That.

My Face Seems Too Square And My Eyes Too Big, Like I'm Perpetually Surprised, But There's Nothing Wrong With Me That I Can Fix.

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These Words Are Now Mine, But Soon They’ll Be Ours.

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I Am Jealous Of Anyone Who Can Make Other People Care So Much.

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So What Else Can I Tell You?" I Asked. "i Mean, To Get You To Reveal Lily To Me.

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Underneath All That Denial, You're Someone Who's Deeply, Deeply Nice.

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It's One Of The Secrets Of Strength: We're So Much More Likely To Find It In The Service Of Others Than In Service To Ourselves.

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But I Still Has Enough Longing For That Concept That I Didn't Want To Dispel It Completely. Meaning: I Didn't Want To Tell Lily That I Felt We'd All Been Duped By Plato And The Idea Of A Soul Mate. Just In Case It Turned Out That She Was Mine.

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She Has Been Hanging On To The Hope Of Him For So Long That She Doesn't Realize There Isn't Anything Left To Hope For.

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Honestly, I'm Just Trying To Live Day To Day

Seven Wonders Of The World And I Have To Ask For An Eighth Fill A Bottle With Some Prayers And Spend Them On Hope Create An Easy Route Just So I Can Complicate Send My Heart Down That Slippery Slope

I Don’t Want To Throw Everything Away For Something Uncertain.

When Someone Breaks Up With You, Their Beauty-- Which You Took Such Satisfaction In-- Suddenly Becomes Unfair.

I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words.

Be Careful What You're Doing, Because No One Is Ever Who You Want Them To Be.

The Assumption Of The Word Reunion Is That, Once You're Together Again, You Are United. Two As One. Pulling Close To Someone Is Only A Temporary Symbol. It's The Way You Breathe With Each Other That's The Telltale Sign.

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When It All Come Down To It, The Thing That Matters Most In A Relationship Is Principles [...] We Have The Same Idea What’s Right And What’s Wrong, And That’s Got Us Through Any Number Of Things. If You Can Have That With Someone, Then You’re Most Of The Way Toward Love. Not Just Lover-love. Any Kind Of Love.

There Are Many Things That Can Keep You In A Relationship," I Say. "fear Of Being Alone. Fear Of Disrupting The Arrangement Of Your Life. A Decision To Settle For Something That's Okay, Because You Don't Know If You Can Get Any Better. Or Maybe There's The Irrational Belief That It Will Get Better, Even If You Know He Won't Change.

Family, Like Arsenic, Works Best In Small Doses...unless You Prefer To Die.

It’s As Simple As That. Simple And Complicated, As Most True Things Are.

Jesus Died For Our Sins," Noah Says Solemnly. "what?!?" I Reply, Choking Back My Thoughts. "i Was Just Seeing If You Were Listening.

...and Suddenly You Started Singing Out Your Love For Me. My Name And Everything, Loud Enough To Reach The Top Floors Of All The Buildings. I Should Have Told You To Stop, But I Didn’t Want You To Stop. I Didn’t Mind If Your Love For Me Woke People Up. I Didn’t Mind If It Somehow Sneaked Into Their Sleep.

Some Days Are Like This. And The Only Way To Get Through Them Is To Remember That They Are Only One Day, And That Every Day Ends.

I Am Made For Running. Because When You Run, You Could Be Anyone. You Hone Yourself Into A Body, Nothing More Or Less Than A Body. You Respond As A Body, To The Body. If You Are Racing To Win, You Have No Thoughts But The Body's Thoughts, No Goals But The Body's Goals. You Obliterate Yourself In The Name Of Speed. You Negate Yourself In Order To Make It Past The Finish Line.

Maybe Tonight You're Scared Of Falling, And Maybe There's Somebody Here Or Somewhere Else You're Thinking About, Worrying Over, Fretting Over, Trying To Figure Out If You Want To Fall, Or How And When You're Gonna Land, And I Gotta Tell You, Friends, To Stop Thinking About The Landing, Because It's All About Falling.

This Is My Life, I Think. I Am An Accumulation Of Objects.

She Transforms Once Again Into Someone Carefree, And I Transform Into Someone Whose Only Care Is Her.

I Want To Take Back At Least Half Of The “i Love You”s, Because I Didn’t Mean Them As Much As The Other Ones.

This Is The Hard Part About Having Best Friends That I Feel No Attachment To -- I Don't Give Them Any Benefit Of The Doubt. And Being Best Friends Is Always About The Benefit Of The Doubt.

This Is What Love Does: It Makes You Want To Rewrite The World. It Makes You Want To Choose The Characters, Build The Scenery, Guide The Plot. The Person You Love Sits Across From You, And You Want To Do Everything In Your Power To Make It Possible, Endlessly Possible. And When It’s Just The Two Of You, Alone In A Room, You Can Pretend That This Is How It Is, This Is How It Will Be.

I Have To Cross The River Of Extreme Awkwardness In Order To Get To The Paradise On The Other Side.

Maybe There Is Hope In The Fragments, That What Is Lost Can Always Be Filled In By Someone Who Knows.

I Know From Experience That Beneath Every Peripheral Girl Is A Central Truth. She’s Hiding Hers Away, But At The Same Time She Wants Me To See It.

I Feel The Universe Is Telling Me Something. And It Doesn't Even Matter If It's True Or Not. What Matters Is That I Feel It, And Believe It.

There Are Boys So Enraptured By Love That They Can't Get Their Hearts To Slow Down Enough To Get Some Rest, And Other Boys So Damaged By Love That They Can't Stop Picking At Their Pain.

You Have To Trust The Words. They Do Not Create Anything More Than Themselves.

What A Strange Phrase — –not Seeing Other People. As If It’s Been Constructed To Be A Lie. We See Other People All The Time. The Question Is What We Do About It.

Is That All We Need? Can The Way We Say Each Other's Names Encompass All Our History, All Our Love, All Our Fear, All Our Fights, All Our Reunions, All Of What We Know About Each Other, All Of What We Don't Know?

Now, I Don't Believe In Doing Hugs Halfway. I Can't Stand People Who Try To Hug Without Touching. A Hug Should Be A Full Embrace - As I Wrap My Arms Around Tony, I Am Not Just Holding Him, But Also Trying To Lift Off His Troubles For A Moment So That The Only Thing He Can Feel Is My Presence, My Support.

We Wish We Could Have Been There For You. We Didn't Have Many Role Models Of Our Own--we Latched On To The Foolish Love Of Oscar Wilde And The Well-versed Longing Of Walt Whitman Because Nobody Else Was There To Show Us An Untortured Path. We Were Going To Be Your Role Models. We Were Going To Give You Art And Music And Confidence And Shelter And A Much Better World. Those Who Survived Lived To Do This. But We Haven't Been There For You. We've Been Here. Watching As You Become The Role Models.

I Am Breathing. In Dreams, We Never Bother To Breathe.

I Want You To Be Honest With Me. Even If It Hurts. Although I Would Prefer For It Not To Hurt.

In School, The Year Was The Marker. Fifth Grade. Senior Year Of High School. Sophomore Year Of College. Then After, The Jobs Were The Marker. That Office. This Desk. But Now That School Is Over And I've Been Working At The Same Place In The Same Office At The Same Desk For Longer Than I Can Truly Believe, I Realize: You Have Become The Marker. This Is Your Era. And It's Only If It Goes On And On That Will Have To Look For Other Ways To Identify The Time.

There Has To Be A Moment At The Beginning When You Wonder Whether You’re In Love With The Person Or In Love With The Feeling Of Love Itself.

It Was So Much Easier When I Didn't Want Anything. Not Getting What You Want Can Make You Cruel.

Getting What You Want

The World, Right Now, Is Only Us.

Because What's The Point Of Something Virtual If It Doesn't End Up Being Real?

Are You Going To Be Playing For The Pure Thrill Of Unreluctant Desire?

Here’s What I Know About The Realm Of Possibility— It Is Always Expanding, It Is Never What You Think It Is. Everything Around Us Was Once Deemed Impossible. From The Airplane Overhead To The Phones In Our Pockets To The Choir Girl Putting Her Arm Around The Metalhead. As Hard As It Is For Us To See Sometimes, We All Exist Within The Realm Of Possibility. Most Of The Limits Are Of Our Own World’s Devising. And Yet, Every Day We Each Do So Many Things That Were Once Impossible To Us.

I Only Have Eyes For You.

Little Less Than A Promise, And A Little More Than A Chance.

If I'm Not Telling You Something, It's For A Reason. Just Because You Trust Me, It Doesn't Mean I Have To Automatically Trust You. Trust Doesn't Work Like That.

You Can't Know What It Is Like For Us Now--you Will Always Be One Step Behind. Be Thankful For That. You Can't Know What It Was Like For Us Then--you Will Always Be One Step Ahead. Be Thankful For That, Too.

Teens Wanted Things That Were Real, That They Connected With, It Doesn't Have To Reflect Reality Directly. They Love 'the Hunger Games' Not Because It's Real In That It Happens, But The Emotions There Are Real, And It's Very Relatable.

Here," She Said. "this Is For You." "i Didn't Really Get You Anything," I Sputtered. "i Mean, I Didn't Know That You Were Going To Be Here, And--" "don't Worry. It's Your Embarrassment At Not Having The Thought That Counts.

If This Continues, If This Goes On, Then When I Die, Your Memories Of Me Will Be My Greatest Accomplishment. You Memories Will Be My Most Lasting Impressions.

Lasting Impressions

The Truth Feels Different From Other Things. The Closest You Can Come To Describing It Is That It Feels Like Taking A Perfect Breath.

Please May This Not Be A Game. Please May This Not Be A Game. Because If It’s A Game, I Know I’m Going To Lose.

You Leave The Phone On Beside You As You Fall Asleep. I Sit In My Bed And Listen To Your Breathing, Until I Know You Are Safe, Until I Know You No Longer Need Me For The Night.

There Is Certainty In A Ring. The Non-ending, The Non-beginning. The Ongoing. The Way It Holds On To You Not Because It's Fastened Or Stretched Or Adhered. It Holds On Because It Fits.

It Is Very Hard To Stay Alive Just For Your Own Sake. It Is Very Hard To Stare Into Day After Day Without Another Familiar Face Staring Back. It Turns Your Heart Into A Purposeless Muscle.

Elliptical, Adj. The Kiss I Like The Most Is One Of The Slow Ones. It’s As Much Breath As Touch, As Much No As Yes. You Lean In From The Side, And I Have To Turn A Little To Make It Happen.

If We Actually Thought About Every Decision We Made, We'd Be Paralyzed ... You Have To Decide Which Decisions You're Actually Going To Make, And Then You Have To Let The Rest Of Them Go.

You Ask Me What I'm Looking For, And I Outline You. You Don't Recognize The Shape, Offer Other Names. You Say My Time Will Come, And I Hope.

It Is Hard To Stop Seeing Your Son As A Son And To Start Seeing Him As A Human Being. It Is Hard To Stop Seeing Your Parents As Parents And To Start Seeing Them As Human Beings. It's A Two-sided Transition, And Very Few People Manage It Gracefully.

Because It Is Senior Year I Have Begun To See Things As Potential Absences. The Things I Love Will Become The Things I'll Miss.

Gone Is Not Forgotten, But Our Lives Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Has To Be A City. Our Lives Have To Be Our Lives.

Void Is When There Is Absolutely Nothing There And The Nothing Is Natural, A Complete Vacuum. But Empty - With Empty, You Are Aware Of What's Supposed To Be There. Empty Means Something Is Missing.

I Try To Be A Careful Person. Most Of The Time My Carelessness Is Completely Unintentional.

Because That's The Thing About Mean People: They Make You Think That The World Will Never Work, That There Are Divides That You Will Fall Into If You Approach. It Takes A Whole Lot Of Good People To Fill In The Breach Created By A Single Mean One.

Putting Up With The Fear Of Being With The Wrong Person Because You Can't Deal With The Fear Of Being Alone.

Fear Of Being Alone

It Was A Laugh That Came From The Tip Of His Toes, Gaining Force And Soul As It Traveled Through His Body And Out Into The World In Mirthful Bursts. There Wasn't Anything Fake About It; It Was An Amusement Park Of A Laugh, And When It Appeared, You Wanted To Jump On Board.

Let’s Make Plans,” I Ventured. And Sofia Smiled And Said, “no, Let’s Leave It To Chance.

You Could Be The Leaf That Never Falls From The Tree You Could Be The Sun That Never Leaves The Sky This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending This Might Be A Reason To Try

He’ll Have To Prove It To You. Every Day, He’ll Have To Prove He’s Worthy Of You. And If He Doesn’t, That’s It. But I Think He Will.

That's The Question, Isn't It?" You Said One Night. "does Death Bring Freedom, Or Is It The End Of Freedom?

... I Love Books About Freaks," Because I Am One. You Might Be, Too. Let's Be Freaks Together?

Detachment, N. Even When I Detach, I Care. You Can Be Separate From A Thing And Still Care About It.

Enlightenment Is Scary. Sometimes Things Look Better In The Dark.

I'm Swimming In Your Cadences That You Permeate My Very Language.

We Found Out A Long Time Ago That We Weren’t Meant To Fall In Love With Each Other. But A Part Of Me Still Fell In Hope With Him.

Falling In Love

It's Only A Game If There Is An Absence Of Meaning. And We've Already Gone Too Far For That.

Just Because A Person Is Beautiful Doesn't Mean There's No Soul Beneath. Doesn't Mean That Person Hasn't Suffered Like Everyone Else, Doesn't Mean They Don't Hope To Still Be A Good Human Being In An Awful World.

I Don't Get This At All. It's Like Protesting The Fact That Some People Are Red-haired.

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Cynthia McKinney

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