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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.

-David Levithan

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This Is What You

David Levithan

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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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I Don’t Want To Know Anything, And I Want To Know It All

Dash Is For Sure Straight!" Boomer Announced. "he Has A Super-pretty Ex-girlfriend Named Sofia, Who I Think He Still Has A Thing For, And Also, In Seventh Grade, There Was A Game Of Spin The Bottle And It Was My Turn And I Spun And It Landed At Dash, But He Wouldn't Let Me Kiss Him.

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.

Dissonance, N. Nights When I Need To Sleep And You Can't. Days When I Want To Talk To You And You Won't. Hours When Every Noise You Make Interferes With My Silence. Weeks When There Is A Buzzing In The Air, And We Both Pretend We Don't Here It.

Maybe There's A Way To Keep Us In This Moment. Not The Sad Part. But The Coming Together Part.

I See No Sin In A Kiss. I Only See Sin In The Condemnation

I Feel Such A Tenderness For These Vulnerable Nighttime Conversations, The Way Words Take A Different Shape In The Air When There's No Light In The Room.

It Is Much Harder To Lie To Someone's Face. But. It Is Also Much Harder To Tell The Truth To Someone's Face.

Telling The Truth

He Is Both The Source Of My Happiness And The One I Want To Share It With.

The World Is Quieter Now. It Is Never Quiet, But It Can Get Quieter. What Strange Creatures We Are, To Find Silence Peaceful, When Permanent Silence Is The Thing We Most Dread. Nighttime Is Not That. Nighttime Still Rustles, Still Creaks And Whispers And Trembles In Its Throat. It Is Not Darkness We Fear, But Our Own Helplessness Within It. How Merciful To Have Been Granted The Other Senses.

To Love--to Fall--is Not A Question. To Touch--to Kiss--to Speak--those Are Questions.

Your Life Is Inescapable. Unless You Decide To Escape It.

I Hope Suffering Don't Exist.

This Is Not Something Insignificant. This Is Real. This Is Happening, And This Is Ours.

I Don't Want To Steal Anybody's Story. I Very Much Want To Use The Stories That I Hear To Get Lost In My Mind, To Tell A Larger Story.

Lying Awake Beside You, These Thoughts Run Through My Head.

This Is Why We Call People Exes, I Guess - Because The Paths That Cross In The Middle End Up Separating At The End. It's Too Easy To See An X As A Cross-out. It's Not, Because There's No Way To Cross Out Something Like That. The X Is A Diagram Of Two Paths.

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.

You Make It A Production. Slam Doors. Knock Things Over. Scream. But I Just Leave. Even If I'm Still Standing There, I Leave. I Am Refusing You. I Am Denying You. I Am An Adjective That Is Quickly Turning Into A Noun.

Ted Is Smart And Good-looking, But He Doesn't Use It To Good Effect, Like A Rich Person That Never Gives To Charity.

People Take Love's Continuity For Granted, Just As They Take Their Body's Continuity For Granted. They Don't Realize That The Best Thing About Love Is Its Regular Presence. Once You Can Establish That, It's An Added Foundation To Your Life.

By The Time I Got There, You’d Already Decided. And I Quickly Decided To Let You Decide. You Were Already Seeing The Rooms As Ours, And That Was Enough For Me.

What Did It Matter To Me? Did I Think That By Making You Rational About One Thing, I Could Make You Rational About Everything? Maybe. Or Maybe I Just Wanted To Save You From Your Fears

Everyone Tried With Me. And Everytime, It Felt Like The Whole Point Of Life Was To See If Trying Was Ever Enough.

But The Thing About A Cry For Help Is That Someone Else Needs To Be Around To Hear It.

I Think They Have Compatible Silences.

Me: Just Don't Ask About His Forty-three Ex-boyfriends, Okay? Or Ask Him About Why He's Carrying Around An Axe. Mom:... Me: I'm Kidding About The Axe Part.

I Think One Of The Highest Compliments You Can Give A Person Is That When You Are Talking To Him, You Are Not Thinking About The Fact That You Are Talking To Him. That Is, Your Thoughts And Words All Exist On A Single, Engaged Level. You Are Being Yourself Because You Aren't Bothering To Think About Who You Should Be. It Is Like When You Talk In A Dream.

Love Is Tied To Truth. I Think Of Them As Unhappily Conjoined Twins.

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

You Wanna-i Dunno-get Coffee Or Something Sometime?

If You Let The World In, You Open Yourself Up To The World. Even If The World Doesn't Know That You're There.

Its Almost Scary How Amateur I Am When It Comes To Musicals - Im A Musical Goer, But I Am Not As Obsessed With Musicals As Perhaps Some Of My Theatrical Friends Are.

That's It - Hundreds Of Texts And Conversations, Thousands Upon Thousands Of Words Spoken And Sent, All Boiled Down Into A Single Line. Is That What Relationships Become?

I Can't Pretend To Know What Love Is. It Just Is.

I Asked You What You Wanted And You Said You Didn't Want Anything. And I Told You I Wasn't Planning On Giving You Anything; I Was Planning On Giving You Something.

I Wake Up Feverish, Sore, Uncomfortable. Is It Sickness Or Is It Heartbreak? I Can't Tell. The Thermometer Says I'm Normal, But I'm Clearly Not.

Arrears, N. My Faithfulness Was As Unthinking As Your Lapse. Of All The Things I Though Would Go Wrong, I Never Thought It Would Be That. "it Was A Mistake," You Said. But The Cruel Thing Was, It Felt Like The Mistake Was Mine, For Trusting You.

There Is Always Something New To Learn About The Person You Love.

We Hold Hands As We Walk Through Town. If Anybody Notices, Nobody Cares. I Know We All Like To Think Of The Heart As The Center Of The Body But At This Moment, Every Conscious Part Of Me Is In The Hand That He Holds. It Is Through That Hand, That Feeling, That I Experience Everything Else.

You Can Give Words, But You Can't Take Them. And When Words Are Given, That Is When They Are Shared. We Remember What That Was Like. Words So Real They Were Almost Tangible. There Are Conversations You Remember, For Certain. But More Than That, There Is The Sensation Of Conversation. You Will Remember That, Even When The Precise Words Begin To Blur.

Apparel, N.: There Are Times I Don’t Mind Doing The Laundry, Because Folding Your Clothes Reminds Me Of The Shape Of You.

The World Loves Stupid Labels. I Wish We Got To Choose Our Own.

I Still Don’t Know If This Is A Good Quality Or A Bad One, To Be Able To Be In The Moment And Then Step Out Of It.

In The Next Election, I'm Voting For Your Mom To Be The Next God.

What I Learned The Well-documented Difference Between Alone And Lonely The Comfort Of Knowing

I Measure The Moment In The Heartbeats I Skip

The Word I Think Of Is Precarious. I Am Struck By How Precarious It All Is. How The Things That Hold Us Are Only As Strong As The Faith We Have In Them.

The Most Understandable Thing In The World Should Be How Minutes Lead To Hours, How Hours Lead To Days, How Days Can Make A Year. And Yet, This Neat Progression Can Still Be Surprising.

I Want To Know Why This Is Such A Part Of Me. I Want To Know Why This Thing That Happened To Other People Has Happened So Much To Me. I Keep Looking For The Lesson.

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.

Every Two People Cause And Intersection. Every Person Alters The World.

He Was My First Boyfriend, And I Made Him My Everything - He Was My New Life, My New Love, My New Compass Point. I Guess That's The Danger With Firsts - You Lose All Sense Of Proportion.

It Was Rather Awkward, Insofar As We Were Both Teetering Between The Possibility Of Something And The Possibility Of Nothing.

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.

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 Don't Realize - The Great Thing About Change Is How Quickly We Get Used To It. So I'm Not Complaining. The More Things Change,the More They Don't Stay The Same. Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise. They Might Not Change Everywhere All At Once - But There Are Moments When The Impossible Becomes The Inevitable, And The Rest Is Just A Matter Of Time.

But I Think We Both Knew, Even Then, That What We Had Was Something Even More Rare, And Even More Meaningful. I Was Going To Be His Friend, And Was Going To Show Him Possibilities. And He, In Turn, Would Become Someone I Could Trust More Than Myself.

Only Adj. Thats The Dilemma Isn't It? When You're Single, There's The Sadness And Joy Of Only Me. And When You're Paired, There's The Sadness And Joy Of Only You.

You Never Get Involved In The People's Lives? The Ones You're Inhabiting?" I Shake My Head. "you Try To Leave The Lives The Way You Found Them." "yeah." "but What About Justin? What Made That So Different?" "you," I Say.

Love Is So Painful, How Could You Ever Wish It On Anybody? And Love Is So Essential, How Could You Ever Stand In Its Way?

People Read Vampire Novels And Say, Oh I Want To Read Another Vampire Novel. People Read Fantasy, And Theyre Like, Oh I Love Fantasy. I Dont Know That People Are Necessarily Finishing Hunger Games And Immediately Wanting To Read Another Dystopian Tale.

I Know The Odds Are All Against Me And I Know You Might Not Feel This Way Too But I Know I Would Rather Die Trying To Know If I Could Mean Something To You

Do You Know When You Cross Against Traffic? You Look Down The Street And See A Car Coming, But You Know You Can Get Across Before It Gets To You. So Even Though There’s A Don’t Walk Sign, You Cross Anyway. And There’s Always A Split Second When You Turn And See That Car Coming, And You Know That If You Don’t Continue Moving, It Will All Be Over. That’s How I Feel A Lot Of The Time. I Know I’ll Make It Across. I Always Make It Across. But The Car Is Always There, And I Always Stop To Watch It Coming.

When We’re Alone Together, I’m The Destination. When I’m Here In Her Life At School, I’m The Disruption.

So I Said I Wanted You To Stay, Even Though Nothing Could Stay The Same.

I Find Faith In Human Perseverance, Even As The Universe Throws Challenge After Challenge Our Way.

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

We Always Loved To Say 'if I'd Had A Monday-morning Class, I Never Would Have Met You'. Or 'if You'd Been Reading Something Else, None Of This Would Have Happened'. We Didn't Believe In Fate, But We Believed In Serendipity. We Felt Very Lucky.

The Boy I Loved Didn't Know I Existed. Then Again, He Was Obsessed With Camus, So He Didn't Know If Any Of Us Existed.

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.

Love Me Less, But Love Me For A Long Time

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

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.

Laughter Rarely Lasts Longer Than A Few Seconds, It's True. But How Enjoyable Those Few Seconds Are.

..i've Been Trying To Argue Myself Into Thinking These Things Don't Matter, A. Really,i Have. But I've Lost The Argument. And I Can't Keep Having It, When I Know What The Real Answer Is.

Why Is It So Much Easier To Talk To A Stranger? Why Do We Feel We Need To Disconnect In Order To Connect? If I Wrote "dear Sofia" Or "dear Boomer" Or "dear Lily's Great-aunt" At The Top Of This Postcard, Wouldn't That Change The Words That Followed? Of Course It Would. But The Question Is: When I Wrote "dear Lily," Was That Just A Version Of "dear Myself"? I Know It Was More Than That. But It Was Also Less Than That, Too

There Are Times I Think Of Us All And I Wish We Were Back In Second Grade. Not Really That Young. But I Wish It Felt Like Second Grade. I’m Not Saying Everyone Was Friends Back Then. But We All Got Along. There Were Groups, But They Didn’t Really Divide. At The End Of The Day, Your Class Was Your Class, And You Felt Like You Were A Part Of It. You Had Your Friends And You Had The Other Kids, But You Didn’t Really Hate Anyone Longer Than A Couple Of Hours. Everybody Got A Birthday Card. In Second Grade, We Were All In It Together. Now We’re All Apart.

After A While, You Have To Be At Peace With The Fact That You Simple Are

Healthy, Adj. There Are Times When I'm Alone That I Think, This Is It. This Is Actually The Natural State. All I Need Are My Thoughts And My Small Acts Of Creation And My Ability To Go Or Do Whatever I Want To Go Or Do. I Am Myself, And That Is The Point. Pairing Is A Social Construction. It Is By No Means Necessary For Everyone To Do It. Maybe I'm Better Like This. Maybe I Could Live My Life In My Own World, And Then Simply Leave It When It's Time To Go.

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

You Went And Broke Our Lives. You Are So Much Worse Than A Cheater. You Killed Something. And You Killed It When Its Back Was Turned.

The Clock Always Ticks. There Are Times You Don't Hear It, And There Are Times That You Do.

And I Told You: I Think Of A Photograph You Took Of Me, Up In Montreal. You Told Me To Jump In The Air, So In The Picture, My Feet Are Off The Ground. Later, I Asked You Why You Wanted Me To Do That, And You Told Me It Was The Only Way To Get Me To Forget About The Expression On My Face. You Were Right. I Am Completely Unposed, Completely Genuine. In My Mind’s Eye, I Picture Myself Like That, Reacting To You.

Deep Breaths. I Am Taking Deep Breaths. Composure. Which, For Me, Means Composing... Maybe This Is My Way Of Creating The Illusion Of Control Over Something I Have No Control Over. Like, If It's Just A Story I'm Telling Or A Song I'm Singing, Then I'll Be Okay Because I'm The Guy Who's Providing The Words.

How Do You Commemorate A Year? A Paper Anniversary, But We Are The Words Written Down, Not The Paper.

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

It's Like You're A Character In This Book That Everyone Around You Is Writing, And Suddenly You Have To Say, 'i'm Sorry, But This Role Isn't Right For Me'. And You Have To Start Writing Your Own Life And Doing Your Own Thing.

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

People Say That Time Slips Through Our Fingers Like Sand. What They Don't Acknowledge Is That Some Of The Sand Sticks To The Skin. These Are Memories That Will Remain, Memories Of The Time When There Was Still Time Left.

I Can Flirt With The Best Of Them, But Only When It Doesn't Matter.

It Was Like Everyone Suddenly Knew What Mattered. Money Didn't Matter. Politics Didn't Matter. Tabloid News Didn't Matter. No-compassion Mattered. Calm Mattered. Respect Mattered. Did It Really Take Something Of This Magnitude To Make Us Realize This?

They Don’t Have Silences Together; They Have Noise. Mostly His.

I Know There Are Epic Tales Of Romance, Where Love Means You're Supposed To Die. Where It's All About Sacrifice. But I Don't Want To Die. I Don't Want Stephen To Die. I'm Looking For The Scenario Where We Both Get To Live. Where We Can Continue This Marvel That Is Love And Discovery And Trust.

For I Have Never Wanted A Lover, But I Have Always Wanted To Love, And To Be Loved.

She Asked Me What Was Wrong, And I Told Her I Had To End It. She Was Surprised, And Asked My Why I Thought So. I Told Her It Wasn't A Thought, More A Feeling, Like I Couldn't Breathe And Knew I Had To Get Some Air. It Was A Survival Instinct, I Told Her. She Said It Was Time For Dinner. Then She Sat Me Down And Told Me Not To Worry. She Said Moments Like This Were Like Waking Up In The Middle Of The Night: You're Scared, Your'e Disoriented, And You're Completely Convinced You're Right. But Then You Stay Awake A Little Longer And You Realize Things Aren't As Fearful As They Seem.

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.

I Am A Drifter, And As Lonely As That Can Be, It Is Also Remarkably Freeing. I Will Never Define Myself In Terms Of Anyone Else. I Will Never Feel The Pressure Of Peers Or The Burden Of Parental Expectation. I Can View Everyone As Pieces Of A Whole, And Focus On The Whole, Not The Pieces. I Have Learned To Observe, Far Better Than Most People Observe. I Am Not Blinded By The Past Or Motivated By The Future. I Focus On The Present Because That Is Where I Am Destined To Live.

Are You A Vegetarian?' I Ask, Based On The Evidence In Front Of Me. She Nods. 'why?' 'because I Have This Theory That When We Die, Every Animal That We've Eaten Has A Chance At Eating Us Back. So If You're A Carnivore And You Add Up All The Animals You've Eaten--well, That's A Long Time In Purgatory, Being Chewed.' 'really?' She Laughs. 'no. I'm Just Sick Of The Question. I Mean, I'm A Vegetarian Because I Think It's Wrong To Eat Other Sentient Creatures. And It Sucks For The Environment.

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

We Love And We Feel And We Try And We Hope.

Need Is Never A Good Basis For Any Relationship. It Has To Be Much More Than That.

I've Always Known I Was Gay, But It Wasn't Confirmed Until I Was In Kindergarten. It Was My Teacher Who Said So. It Was Right There On My Kindergarten Report Card: Paul Is Definitely Gay And Has Very Good Sense Of Self.

There Will Always Be More Questions. Every Answer Leads To More Questions. The Only Way To Survive Is To Let Some Of Them Go.

Love And I Once Had A Great Relationship, But I Fear We've Broken Up. It Cheated On Me, Wrecked My Heart, And Then Went On To Date Other People. A Lot Of Other People. And I Can't Stand To Watch It, Since Love's Going To Cheat On Them Too.

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

When Dawn Looked At Vic, She Saw Vic Exactly As He Wanted To Be Seen. Whereas Vic's Parents Couldn't Help Seeing Who He Used To Be, And So Many Friends And Strangers Couldn't Help Seeing Who He Didn't Want To Be Anymore, Dawn Only Saw Him. Call It A Blur If You Want, But Dawn Didn't See A Blur. She Saw A Very Distinct, Very Clear Person.

Anchor, V.: I Drift, I Drift, I Drift, You Stay.

I Know I Should Just Leave. Just Go. Because There's A Point Where A Mistake Turns Into A Big Mistake, And I Should Probably Come To My Senses Before I Get There.

I Hope That George Doesn't Internalize Her Scare Tactics. I Want To Argue With Her, Tell Her That "sins Of The Flesh" Is Just A Control Mechanism -- If You Demonize A Person's Pleasure, Then You Can Control His Or Her Life. I Can't Say How Many Times This Tool Has Been Wielded Against Me, In A Variety Of Forms. But I See No Sin In A Kiss. I Only See Sin In The Condemnation.

You Can't Actually Have A Romance Between Friends. That Sort Of Defeats The Definition Of The Word "romance." The Word You're Looking For Is "love." It's A Love Between Friends, Just As There's Also Love Between Lovers, Or Possible Lovers, Or Even Ex-lovers. Same Holds True For "bromance" - It's Just A Clever Word Used To Avoid The Word Love, For Straight Boys Who Don't Want That Old-fashioned Taint Of Gayness. Dudes, You Love Each Other. Deal With It.

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.

Sometimes The Space Between Knowing What To Do And Actually Doing It Is A Very Short Walk. Other Times It Is An Impossible Expanse.

What I Really Want, And What I Never Get - Is To Be Appreciated.

Stanchion, N. I Don't Want To Be The Strong One, But I Don't Want To Be The Weak One Either. Why Does It Feel Like It's Always One Or The Other? When We Embrace, One Of Us Is Always Holding The Other A Little Tighter.

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.

Yes, Time Can Be Buoyed By Wordlessness, But It Needs To Be Anchored In Words.

How Can You Spend Hours Every Day Trying In Small Ways To Figure Out Who You Are, Then Have A Near-stranger Give You A Sentence Of Yourself That Says It Better Than You Ever Could?

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.

Maybe Your History Just Repeats And Repeats Until It Batters You Enough To Snap The Seams That Hold You Together

Pink Is Female - But Why? Are Girls Any More Pink Than Boys? Are Boys Any More Blue Than Girls? It's Something That Has Been Sold To Us, Mostly So Other Things Can Be Sold To Us.

Beauty Comes Naturally, But It's Hard To Be Stunning By Accident.

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.

When The Shock Wears Off, You Always Hope There's Understanding Underneath.

It's Not The Easy Things That Let You Get To Know A Person.

It Was The Most Amazing Feeling In The World. To Know That Something Right Happened, And To Know That It Had Happened Not Through Luck Or Command But Simply Because It Was Right.

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.

Why Won't They Leave Me Alone? Don't They Realize I Have A Tinder Heart And A Paper Body And That Any Spark Will Turn Me Straight To Ash?

That's What The Voices In Your Head Are For, To Get You Through The Silent Parts.

I Have Always Been Aware Of How I Break. I Know What Kind Of Situations Will Break Me. I Know What Kind Of People Will Do It. I Know How Much It Will Hurt.

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.

Every Day I Am Someone Else. I Am Myself-i Know I Am Myself-but I Am Also Someone Else. It Has Always Been Like This.

He Was Attractive. I Knew That. And I Knew That Attractive People Always Got Away With Things.

I Am Like The Fish In The Aquarium, Thinking In A Different Language, Adapting To A Life That’s Not My Natural Habitat. I Am The People In The Other Cars, Each With His Or Her Own Story, But Passing Too Quickly To Be Noticed Or Understood.

Self-esteem Can Be So Exhausting. I Want To Cut My Hair, Change My Clothes, Erase The Pimple From The Near-tip Of My Nose, And Strengthen My Upper-arm Definition, All In The Next Hour.

I Wish I Could Remember The Moment When I Was A Kid And I Discovered That The Letters Linked Into Words, And That The Words Linked To Real Things. What A Revelation That Must Have Been. We Don't Have The Words For It, Since We Hadn't Yet Learned The Words. It Must Have Been Astonishing, To Be Given The Key To The Kingdom And See It Turn In Our Hands So Easily.

People Are Rarely As Attractive In Reality As They Are In The Eyes Of The People Who Are In Love With Them. Which Is, I Suppose, As It Should Be.

The Important Thing Is For The Characters To Feel Real, And To Be Given The Humanity They Are Due. That Granting Of Humanity Is What Separates A Full Portrait From A Stereotype.

I Had Always Felt That Mittens Were A Few Steps Back On The Evolutionary Scale-- Why, I Wondered, Would We Want To Make Ourselves Into A Less Agile Version Of Lobster.

The More Kindness And Justice Are Challenged, The More We Must Embrace Them. Only When You Are Challenged - And Only When You Challenge Yourself - Do You Discover What Truly Matters.

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.

I Had Gotten So Used To Being Alone, But Never Entirely Used To It. Never Used To It Enough To Stop Wanting The Alternative.

Everyone In Our School Has Afterschool Activities. Mine Is Going Home.

There's No Way For Them To Take Away My Sadness, But They Can Make Sure I Am Not Empty Of All The Other Feelings.

But I Guess You Don't See The Planets When You're Staring At The Sun. You Just Get Blinded.

Love Weaves Itself From Hundreds Of Threads.

Things Rarely Get Fixed The Way They Need To Be.

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.

This Isn't Even Something I've Feared, Because I Never Knew It Was A Possibility.

No Matter How Happy We Are, No Matter How Much We Want Our Night To Stretch Out Infinitely, Sleep Is Inevitable.

As Sisters, They Probably Have Closer To 99 Percent In Common, But They’re Not About To Recognize That. They’d Rather Fight Over What Kind Of Pet They’re Going To Get … It’s An Argument For Its Own Sake.

What Separates Us From The Animals, What Separates Us From The Chaos, Is Our Ability To Mourn People We’ve Never Met.

Feeling Someone Else's Anger Is Bad; Being Left Alone Is Worse.

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.

I Immediately Suspected There Was Much More To It Than Was Being Said.

I Wish I Were Someone Else, Even Though I Know I'll Never, Ever Be Able To Get Away From What I've Done And What's Been Done To Me.

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

I Never Felt The Urge To Jump Off A Bridge, But There Are Times I Have Wanted To Jump Out Of My Life, Out Of My Skin.

There Was A Pause. I Was Still Scared By Every Gap In Our Conversation, Fearing That This Was It, The Point Where We Had Nothing Left To Say. I Was Still Trying To Impress You, And I Still Wanted To Be Impressed By You, So I Could Pass Along Pieces Of Your Impressiveness To My Friends, Convincing Myself This Was Possible.

I Have No More Idea Now Of Who I Am Than I Did Before. But At Least I Know That. And I'm Starting To Figure Out Who I Want To Be.

Such A Strange Thing, To Hold A Six-year-old's Hand. Especially A Six-year-old You've Only Just Met. A Toddler Will Grab Hold Of Your Finger, And Someone Your Own Age Will Clasp On To Your Whole Hand, But With Six-year-olds It's Something In Between, This Acknowledgment That They Can't Be The One To Take Hold, So You Have To Do All The Holding, Folding Your Hand Around Theirs, Feeling So Much Bigger And Responsible.

Iv. Who Was It Who Invented Size Zero? Who Was It Who Promised That If You Got To A Certain Point You Would No Longer Be?

I Was Starting To Think I Was Making Up Memories, Just To Have Answers. Our Brain Does That Sometimes. Or At Least Mine Does.

Ignorance Is Not Bliss. Bliss Is Knowing The Full Meaning Of What You Have Been Given.

When You Need To Hold Onto Something, You Should. Whatever Gets You Through, Take It.

But If I Didn’t Want To Be Alone, Then Why Didn’t I Want To Be With Anyone Else?

Wants To Be Alone

What A Horrible Feeling That Is, To Know That If The Disease [aids] Had Primarily Affected Pta Presidents, Or Priests, Or White Teenage Girls, The Epidemic Would Have Been Ended Years Earlier, And Tens Of Thousands, If Not Hundreds Of Thousands Of Lives Would Have Been Saved.

I Always Think Of Each Night As A Song. Or Each Moment As A Song. But Now I'm Seeing We Don't Live In A Single Song. We Move From Song To Song, From Lyric To Lyric, From Chord To Chord. There Is No Ending Here. It's An Infinite Playlist.

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

Trying To Write About Love Is Ultimately Like Trying To Have A Dictionary Represent Life. No Matter How Many Words There Are, There Will Never Be Enough.

You Are So Close, And I Can’t Reach You.

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 Have Taken Advantage Of Other People's Weaknesses In Order To Cover My Own.

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

Getting What You Want

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.

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.

A Year. A Thousand Kisses. And Now A Thousand One, A Thousand Two. There Are So Many Other Place We Could Have Ended Up, But I Have To Believe None Of Them Would Have Felt This Right. "all I Want Is You" Is Not Entirely True. I Want So Much More, And With You I Think I Can Get It.

There Is No Word For The Recipient Of The Love. There Is Only A Word For The Giver. There Is The Assumption That Lovers Come In Pairs.

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

I Had A Sense Then Of How If We Truly Understood How Many Of The Unimportant Things We Do Will End Up Outliving Us, We'd Never Be Able To Go On.

Unimportant Things

Even When I Detach, I Care. You Can Be Separate From A Thing And Still Care About It. If I Wanted To Detach Completely, I Would Move My Body Away. I Would Stop The Conversation Midsentence. I Would Leave The Bed. Instead, I Hover Over It For A Second. I Glance Off In Another Direction. But I Always Glance Back At You.

But You Have To Figure That If It’s Too Hard To Hang On, Then Maybe You Should Let Go.

This Blue Shirt I Have Is Practically The Same Color As My Jeans, And Looking All-blue Is Something Only Cookie Monster Can Pull Off.

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

Indelible, Adj. That First Night, You Took Your Finger And Pointed To The Top Of My Head, Then Traced A Line Between My Eyes, Down My Nose, Over My Lips, My Chin, My Neck, To The Center Of My Chest. It Was So Surprising. I Knew I Would Never Mimic It. That One Gesture Would Be Yours Forever.

With All Due Respect, If You’re Forty-three, Then I’m A Fetus.

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

There Is No Such Thing As Equality For Some. Equality Must Be For All. That Is What Freedom Is. That Is What Liberty Is. No Human Being Is Born More Or Less Important Than Any Other. How Can We Allow Ourselves To Forget That? What Simpler Truth Is There?

The Mistake Is Thinking That There Can Be An Antidote To The Uncertainty.

It Is So Unfair That He Lives In Ohio, Because That Should Be Close Enough, But Since Neither Of Us Drives And Neither Of Us Would Ever In A Million Years Say, 'hey, Mom, Do You Want To Drive Me Across Indiana To See A Boy?,' We're Kind Of Stuck.

I Don’t Like It When You Use My Shampoo, Because Then Your Hair Smells Like Me, Not You.

The Way You Argued With Me, You Would Have Thought That We Were Debating The Existence Of God Or Whether Or Not We Should Move In Together. These Kinds Of Fights Can Never Be Won – Even If You’re The Victor, You’ve Hurt The Other Person, And There Has To Be Some Loss Associated With That.

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.

If You Tell Me, I Will Leave You Alone," I Said. "and If You Don't Tell Me, I Am Going To Grab The Nearest Ghostwritten James Patterson Romance Novel And I Am Going To Follow You Through This Store Reading It Out Loud Until You Relent. Would You Prefer Me To Read From Daphne's Three Tender Months With Harold Or Cindy And John's House Of Everlasting Love? I Guarantee, Your Sanity And Your Indie Street Cred Won't Last A Chapter. And They Are Very, Very Short Chapters." Now I Could See The Fright Beneath The Defiance.

The Older You Get, The Wiser You Are - This Is True. But You Also Question What Use This Wisdom Is.y

You Don't Know, But I'm Noticing.

This, I Think, Is How People Survive: Even When Horrible Things Have Been Done To Us, We Can Still Find Gratitude In One Another.

We Were Painting By Numbers, Starting With The Greens. Because That Happened To Be Our Favorite Color. And This, We Figured, Had To Mean Something.

Part Of Growing Up Is Making Sure Your Sense Of Reality Isn't Entirely Grounded In Your Own Mind.

Placid, Adj. Sometimes I Love It When We Just Lie On Our Backs, Gaze Off, Stay Still.

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