I’m learning how to taste everything.
I look at my homely sketch. It doesn’t need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn’t perfect and that makes it just right.
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.
IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.
You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.
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.
They’re on their way to the foreign-language wing. That’s no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they’ll choke to death on too much American.
There is no safer. There’s not even safe, never has been.
I am almost a real girl the entire drive home. I went to a diner. I drank hot chocolate and ate french fries. Talked to a guy for a while. Laughed a couple of times. A little like ice-skating for the first time, wobbly, but I did it.
If I run or breathe too deep, the cheap stitches holding me together will snap, and all the stickiness inside will pour out and burn through the concrete.
Hannah was about to burst with excitement, which would have been disgusting because she would have sprayed blood, guts and glitter in every direction.
I smile and play pretend through the Morning Show in the kitchen.
They tied me back together, but they didn’t use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they’re dry.
I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.
You must walk alone to find your soul.
We have to acknowledge that adolescence is that time of transition where we begin to introduce to children that life isn’t pretty, that there are difficult things, there are hard situations, it’s not fair. Bad things happen to good people.
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 like cheeseburgers too much to be a model.
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.
Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.