I'm all alone, fuming at myself, waving a great flag of failure.
There're three reasons people get away from here: gone good, gone bad or gone dead.
Stella scribbled in thick black texta across half the pages of my best storybook, filled with people who ventured where their hearts took them. Beautiful worlds beyond mine.
It's not about blood," says Lucius. "It's about who you share your life with. Where you feel you really belong.
Strange, isn't it?" he asks. "Where life takes you and how much can change.
I walk the city, through its crush of people and its smells: body odour, rotting food, vomit and urine. A cocktail of oppression and freedom.
Things should have been so different to the way they are now.
The true test is won when being together without saying a word is everything.
One more year and I will be closer to wherever I'm going.
Growing up changes more than playground games and body shapes.
Instead, she's as still as a leaf-littered pond, dark water evaporating, waiting desperately for rain.
I'm just the reason they married. Mum says I was a surprise. Dad says I was an accident. Truth is ... I am their mistake.
i miss my brother like the sea would miss salt if that were taken away.
Then she smiles, like it's the first time she's seen sun after a decade of winters.
I want out of this place. With no reminders." It stings - sulphur tears in cinnamon rain.
