I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped.
Memory cuts both ways; it can either provide you with tremendous strength and a foundation to carry you through your life, or it can be a demon that just ruins your present and your future because you can’t let go of the past.
I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy – old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.
Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don’t express themselves, they die on piece at a time.
We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.
Bologna girl, that’s me.
I wish America would stop judging and criticizing teens and instead, try to understand the battles they have to fight every day.
And then a new screen, one I had never seen before, never even heard of popped up. It gave me a choice. I could become the new Lord of Darkness myself, or I could take a gamble and be reincarnated. I chose wisely.
I inscribe three lines, hush hush hush, into my skin. Ghosts trickle out.
It’s easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.
Gym should be illegal. It’s humiliating.
This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you’ve never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help you find the wind.
Can’t escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.
If I ever form a clan, we’ll be the anti-cheerleaders and walk under the bleacher forming mild acts of mayhem.
I doubt trees are ever told to ‘be the screwed-up ninth-grader.’
I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.
Having a friend made everything else suck less.
Used to be that my whole body was my canvas-hot cuts licking my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs...
I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.
Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say nothing. I am nothing.
They say they have noticed me drawing. I almost tell them right then and there. They noticed.