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So Are You Going To Be My Knight In Shining Armor Or What?' Kent Does A Little Bow. 'you Know I Can't Resist A Damsel In Distress.

-Lauren Oliver

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So Are You Going

Lauren Oliver

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So Are You Going To Be My Knight In Shining Armor Or What?' Kent Does A Little Bow. 'you Know I Can't Resist A Damsel In Distress.

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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.

That Is What Alex Is Now: A Shadow-boy

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.

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.

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

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.

No One Can Tell Us No. No One Can Make Us Stop. We Have Picked Each Other And The Rest Of The World Can Go To Hell.

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.

Be Honest: Are You Surprised That I Didn't Realize Sooner? Are You Surprised That It Took Me So Long To Even /think/ The Word -- Death? Dying? Dead? Do You Think I Was Being Stupid? Naive? Try Not To Judge. Remember That We're The Same, You And Me. I Thought I Would Live Forever Too.

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

That Is The Rule Of The Wilds: You Must Be Bigger And Stronger And Tougher. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

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.

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

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.

Alex Loved Books. He Was The One Who First Introduced Me To Poetry. That's Another Reason I Can't Read Anymore.

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.

We Are All Punished For The Lives We Have Chosen, In One Way Or Another.

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

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

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.

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.

There Are Some Losses We Never Get Over.

Black Is Too Morbid; Red Will Set Them On Edge; Pink Is Too Juvenile; Orange Is Freakish

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.

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

We're Killers, All Of Us: We Kill Our Lives, Our Past Selves, The Things That Mattered. We Bury Them Under Slogans And Excuses.

One Of The Strangest Things About Life Is That It Will Chug On, Blind And Oblivious, Even As Your Private World - Your Little Carved-out Sphere - Is Twisting And Morphing, Even Breaking Apart.

Funny How Time Heals. Like That Bullet In My Ribs. It's There, I Know It's There, But I Can Barely Feel It At All Anymore.

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

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.

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.

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.

Love Is A Kind Of Possession. It’s A Poison.

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.

If You’re Smart, You Care. And If You Care, You Love.

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

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.

The First One, We’ll Name Blue.

I'm Not Scared, If That's What You're Wondering. The Moment Of Death Is Full Of Sound And Warmth And Light Shooting Away, Arcing Up And Up And Up, And If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing... The Rest You Have To Find Out For Yourself.

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.

You See, We Didn't Know.

It's Amazing How Words Can Do That, Just Shred Your Insides Apart. Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Can Never Hurt Me - Such Bullshit.

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..." ♥

Things Would Get Difficult Again. But That Was Okay Too. The Bravery Was In Moving Forward, No Matter What.

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.

The Walls Are Covered -crammed- With Writing. No. Not Writing. They Are Covered With A Single Four-letter Word That Has Been Inscribed Over And Over, On Every Available Surface. Love.

My Wild, Uncured, Erratic, Incomprehensible Heart.

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

How Can Someone Have The Power To Shatter You To Dust--and Also To Make You Feel So Whole?

It's The Way He Says My Name: Like Music.

There's Still Always The Possibility That I've Gone Totally, Clinically Cuckoo. But Somehow I Don't Think So Anymore. An Article I Once Read Said That Crazy People Don't Worry About Being Crazy - That's The Whole Problem.

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.

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

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

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

..in That Moment I Realize How Much I Love The Little Everyday Routines Of My Life..the Details That Are My Life's Special Pattern, Like How In Handwoven Rugs What Really Makes Them Unique Are The Tiny Flaws In The Stitching, Little Gaps And Jumps And Stutters That Can Never Be Reproduced. So Many Things Become Beautiful When You Really Look.

Everyday Routine

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.

I Don't Understand How Everything Changes, How The Layers Of Your Life Get Buried. Impossible. At Some Point, At Some Time, We Must All Explode.

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 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.

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

Each Step Is More Difficult Than The Last; The Heaviness Fills Me And Turns My Limbs To Stone. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

People Themselves Are Full Of Tunnels: Winding, Dark Spaces And Caverns; Impossible To Know All The Places Inside Of Them. Impossible Even To Imagine.

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

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.

Waste Today, Want Tomorrow.

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

It's Like A Razor Blade Edging Its Way Through My Organs, Shredding Me, All I Can Think Is: It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me. And I Don't Care.

His Eyes Are The Color Of Honey. These Are The Eyes I Remember From My Dreams.

"and I Love You Too." His Fingers Skate The Edge Of My Jaw, Dance Briefly Over My Lips. "you Should Know That. You Have To Know That."

Nothing Has Ever Been So Painful Or Delicious As Being So Close To Him And Being Unable To Do Anything About It: Like Eating Ice Cream So Fast On A Hot Day You Get A Splitting Headache.

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

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."

That Was What Her Parents Did Not Understand—and Had Never Understood—about Stories. Liza Told Herself Storied As Though She Was Weaving And Knotting An Endless Rope. Then, No Matter How Dark Or Terrible The Pit She Found Herself In, She Could Pull Herself Out, Inch By Inch And Hand Over Hand, On The Long Rope Of Stories.

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.

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.

It's Amazing How Close I Have Been, All This Time, To My Old Life. And Yet The Distance That Divides Me From It Is Vast.

Unhappiness Is Bondage; Therefore, Happiness Is Freedom.

"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.

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.

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.

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

Keeping Secrets

Best Kept Secrets

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.

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.

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.

No Guy In His Right Mind Would Ever Choose Me When There Are People Like Hana In The World: It Would Be Like Settling For A Stale Cookie When What You Really Want Is A Big Bowl Of Ice Cream, Whipped Cream And Cherries And Chocolate Sprinkles Included.

It Was A Bird. A Bird Struggling Through Stickiness: A Bird Coated In Paint, Floundering In Its Nest, Splashing Color Everywhere. Red. Red. Red. Dozens Of Them: Black Feathers Coated Thickly With Crimson-colored Paint, Fluttering Among The Branches. Red Means Run.

I’m Hana,” Hana Says. “and This Is Lena.” She Jabs Me With An Elbow. I Know I Must Look Like A Fish, Standing There With My Mouth Gaping Open, But I’m Too Outraged To Speak. He’s Lying. I Know He’s The One I Saw Yesterday, Would Bet My Life On It. “alex. Nice To Meet You.” Alex Keeps His Eyes On Me As He And Hana Shake Hands. Then He Extends A Hand To Me. “lena,” He Says Thoughtfully. “i’ve Never Heard That Name Before.

Why Couldn't You Let Me Have It? Why Did You Have To Take It? Why Did You Always Take Everything?

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

They’d Already Taken Her From Me Once. I Didn’t Want To Lose Her Again.

Droplets, Droplets: We Are All Identical Drips And Drops Of People, Hovering, Waiting To Be Tipped, Waiting For Someone To Show Us The Way, To Pour Us Down A Path. ... He Has Tipped Us Over, All Of Us In Our Teetering Expectancy, And Now We Are Pouring Toward Him, Coursing On A Wave Of Sound, Of Roaring Shouts And Applause. ... They Are The Moon; We Are A Tide, Their Tide, And Under Their Direction We Will Wipe Clean All The Sickness And Blight From The World.

Willing Me To Understand: That People Should Be Sacrificed To Causes, That Beauty Can Be Built On The Backs Of The Dead.

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.

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.

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

Telling The Truth

It's Weird How Much People Change. For Example, When I Was A Kid I Loved All Of These Things..and Over Time All Of Them Just Fell Away, One After Another, Replaced By Friends And Iming And Cell Phones And Boys And Clothes. It's Kind Of Sad, If You Think About It. Like There's No Continuity In People At All. Like Something Ruptures When You Hit Twelve, Or Thirteen, Or Whatever The Age Is When You're No Longer A Kid But A "young Adult," And After That You're A Totally Different Person. Maybe Even A Less Happy Person. Maybe Even A Worse One.

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

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.

It Was Unfair That People Could Pretend To Be One Thing When They Were Really Something Else. That They Would Get You On Their Side And Then Do Nothing But Fail, And Fail, And Fail Again. People Should Come With Warnings, Like Cigarette Packs: Involvement Would Kill You Over Time.

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.

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.

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

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge.

This Is What Amazes Me: That People Are New Every Day. That They Are Never The Same. You Must Always Invent Them, And They Must Always Invent Themselves, Too.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Feel An Overwhelming Rush Of Sadness... I'm Just Struck With A Sense Of Time Passing So Quickly, Rushing Forward. One Day I'll Wake Up And My Whole Life Will Be Behind Me, And It Will Seem To Have Gone As Quickly As A Dream.

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.

He Who Leaps For The Sky May Fall, It's True. But He May Also Fly.

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

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

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

Anything Is Possible

Things Change After You Die, Though, I Guess Because Dying Is The Loneliest Thing You Can Do.

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

Funny How Certain Things Stay 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.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried.

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

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.

You Have To Understand. I Am No One Special. I Am Just A Single Girl. I Am Five Feet Two Inches Tall And I Am In-between In Every Way. But I Have A Secret. 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.

I've Been So Used To Thinking Of What The Borders Are Keeping Out That I Haven't Considered That They're Also Penning Us In.

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.

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.

...the Past: It Drifts, It Gathers. If You Are Not Careful, It Will Bury You. This Is Half The Reason For The Cure: It Clean-sweeps; It Makes The Past, And All Its Pain, Distant, Like The Barest Impression On Sparkling Glass.

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.

Most Of The Time One Night Blends Into The Next And Weeks Blend Into Weeks And Months Into Other Months. And Sooner Or Later We All Die. But At The Beginning Of The Night Anything’s Possible.

I Wonder If This Is How People Always Get Close: They Heal Each Other's Wounds; They Repair The Broken Skin.

Over The Past Week, I’ve Accepted That I Will Never Love Julian As Much As I Loved Alex. But Now That Idea Is Overwhelming, Like A Wall Between Us. I Will Never Love Julian Like I Love Alex.

The Tunnels May Be Long, And Twisted, And Dark; But You Are Supposed To Go Through Them.

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.

You Have To Learn That People Are Always Listening.

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.

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

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

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

The Old Lena Is Dead.

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

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

That’s A Funny Thing: You Think, When Awful Things Happen, Everything Else Just Stops, Like You Would Forget To Pee And Eat And Get Thirsty, But It’s Not Really True. It’s Like You And Your Body Are Two Separate Things, Like Your Body Is Betraying You, Chugging On, Idiotic And Animal, Craving Water And Sandwiches And Bathroom Breaks While Your World Falls Apart.

Mama, Mama, Help Me Get Home I'm Out In The Woods, I Am Out On My Own. I Found Me A Werewolf, A Nasty Old Mutt It Showed Me Its Teeth And Went Straight For My Gut. Mama, Mama, Help Me Get Home I'm Out In The Woods, I Am Out On My Own. I Was Stopped By A Vampire, A Rotting Old Wreck It Showed Me Its Teeth And Went Straight For My Neck. 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. -from "a Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes And Folk Tales

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

And In That Moment, The Wordless Thing Passed Between Us, The Thing That Wasn't Quite Love But Was So Close I Could Believe In It Sometimes.

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.

What I Meant Was, You Looked Happier In The Pictures.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Shiver, Thinking How Easy It Is To Be Totally Wrong About People-to See One Tiny Part Of Them And Confuse It For The Whole, To See The Cause And Think It's The Effect Or Vice Versa

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

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

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

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

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

And There It Is: Even Though We’re Standing In The Same Patch Of Sun-drenched Pavement, We Might As Well Be A Hundred Thousand Miles Apart.

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.

The Wilds Aren't Safe Anymore.

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.

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).

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

....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.

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

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.

There's A Place For Everything And Everyone, You Know. That Is The Mistake They Make Above. They Think That Only Certain People Have A Place. Only Certain Kinds Of People Belong. The Rest Is Waste. But Even Waste Must Have A Place. Otherwise It Will Clog And Clot, And Rot And Fester.

If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

That’s What You Do For Family. Anything.

Less Than A Month Ago All Of August Still Stretched Before Us - Long And Golden And Reassuring, Like An Endless Period Of Delicious Sleep.

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.

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.

Perhaps This Was How The Sparrows Did It Too; Perhaps They Were Looking So Hard At The Peaks And Tips Of The New Rooftops Coated With Dew, And The Vast New Horizon, That They Only Forgot That They Did Not Know How To Fly Until They Were Already In Midair.

This Is One Of My Favorite Things About The Underground: The Crashing Of The Cymbals, The Screeching Guitar Riffs, Music That Moves Into The Blood And Makes You Feel Hot And Wild And Alive.

For A Second I Feel A Rush Of Sadness: For The Horizons That Vanish Behind Us, For The People We Leave Behind, The Tiny-doll Selves That Get Stored Away And Ultimately Buried.

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.

Step On A Crack , You'll Break Your Mama's Back. Step On A Stone, You'll End Up All Alone. Step On A Stick, You're Bound To Get The Sick. Watch Where You Tread, You'll Bring Out All The Dead. - A Common Children's Playground Chant, Usually Accompanied By Jumping Rope Or Clapping.

I'll Find You," He Says, Watching Me With The Eyes I Remember. "i Won't Let You Go Again

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.

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

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