You needn’t tell a bird it’s a bird. Or remind a fish of its purpose. It’s only us who lose our way. We have names because we must. – from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter.
There doesn’t seem like there should be an artful way to butcher a cow, but there is, and this is not it.
In the night, I’ve shrunk and everyone else on the island has grown. They’re all nine feet tall and men and I’m four feet and a child. Dove, too, is a toy or possibly a dog as I lead her through the throngs of people.
I’m pleased to see that the cab is cluttered with cough drop wrappers and empty milk bottles and bits of mud-smeared newspapers made brittle by age. Neatness makes me feel like I have to be on my best behavior. Clutter is my natural habitat.
I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t had to fake gratitude for a gift, and now that I actually was grateful, thank you didn’t seem to cut it.
My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.
I think every now and then about Sean’s thumb pressed against my wrist and daydream about him touching me again. But mostly I think about the way he looks at me – with respect – and I think that’s probably worth more than anything.
His face was just strange enough that she wanted to keep looking at it.
Have you heard of the legends of sleeping kings? The legends that heroes like Llewellyn and Glendower and Arthur aren’t really dead, but are instead sleeping in tombs, waiting to be woken?
Knowing what I was, and wanting me, anyway.
When you traffic in monsters, that’s the risk you run, that you’ll find one too monstrous to stomach.
It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars.
Tommy grabs my waist and swings me around in a circle. I drag my feet because i am opposed to people touching me when I’m not expecting it. Also because it will take more than dancing to cheer me up.
Sean takes my ponytail in his hand, his fingers touching my neck, and then he tucks my hair into my collar out of the reach of the wind. He avoids my gaze. Then he links his arm back around me and pushes his calf into Corr’s side.
This is what you get, Maura, for using your DNA to make a baby.
Blue tried not to look at Gansey’s boat shoes; she felt better about him as a person if she pretended he wasn’t wearing them.
I don’t trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn’t mean I’m afraid of it.
It’s a lovely answer and takes me entirely by surprise. I hadn’t realized we were having a serious conversation, or I think I would’ve given a better reply when he asked me.
Happiness isn’t something this island yields easily; the ground is too rocky and the sun too sparse for it to flourish.
I always wanted an eccentric daughter. I just never realized how well my evil plans were working.
The dog pranced delightedly around his feet as if he’d been gone to another planet instead of merely underneath a car.