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.
I lift my arm out of the water. It’s a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. They yell at me because I can’t see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs. Nobody can make it stop.
First thought: It was a dream Second thought: No it wasn’t Third thought: Crap.
You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She’s haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.
Sometimes being an adult means doing the right thing, even if it’s not what you want.
When life sucks, read. They can’t yell at you for that. And if they do, then you can ignore them.
Grandma frowned and yelled something in Russian. She could have been saying, ‘Open up, your best friend is here.’ On the other hand, it could have been, ‘America is a great country because of canned ravioli.
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.
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!
I have ten bucks in my pocket – what to spend it on? French fries – ten dollars’ worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy.
I keep thinking that if I could just unzip my skin, step out of this body, then I would see who I really am.
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.
The bruises are vivid, but they will fade.