I have done what they expected of me. I have curtsied for my Queen and made my debut. This is what I have anticipated eagerly for years. So why do I feel so unsatisfied? Everyone is merry. They haven't a care in the world. And perhaps that is it. How...
I choose to suppress the initial categories I want to put people in - rich, poor, together, not together, druggie, yuppie, rocker, loser, winner, cool, uncool. I choose to remember that I don't know their struggle or their pain. I choose to err on th...
The difference between this waiting period and the wait that I had already been enduring was that I was no longer hoping that he would see me, wishing that he would work, or wondering if he would care. Instead, I knew that he would be at work in my m...
She tells me about dreams. She says my dreams are helium and balloons, and I've made the mistake of letting go a few to many times, but I still got this one. Tied around my finger like a wedding ring because even though I don't believe in marriages, ...
I couldn’t figure out if it was fate or faith that had brought me there. How funny those two words sounded when paired together. One was the inevitable, something I could not change in my life, while the other was the hope and belief that I could. ...
Except then I wonder what it's like to feel normal because if you take away the things I've felt all my life--the insecurity, the pain, the loneliness, the absolute dissolution of any sane or rational thought during one of my more manic moods and the...
The night creeps in by subtle degrees while a show of fierce colors attracts and distracts me. I look up, suddenly aware of remote lights scattered overhead. I gasp as the last streak of fire dies on the horizon, and I comprehend it all too late. Tha...
The sun, moon, and stars God gave to the world, but He embedded their glories in your countenance just for me. Woven in your hair are the sun's shimmering golden rays. From your face glows the pale luminescence of the moon. And in your eyes God sprin...
Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule. Our children weight hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than t...
Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and...
Mama said it's probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I don't think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was different...
This is the most important thing about me--I'm a card-carrying reader. All I really want to do is sit and read or lie down and read or eat and read or shit and read. I'm a trained reader. I want a job where I get paid for reading books. And I don't h...
Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always ...
It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit. And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furi...
Annabeth Thalia and I hadn't seen each other in months but between the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do we were too nervous to talk much. Except for my mom. She talks more when she's nervous. By the time we finally got to Westover...
And if we don't keep moving, we won't make it to a computer in time to stop the submarine sale because we'll have to spend a second night in the jungle, surrounded by friggin' pit vipers. In the rain. And I am sick and tired of the rain. I want to ge...
We need to talk," he insisted, opening the door to his jeep that was parked next to my car. I was still holding out hope this would end and I would see his smile soon. "What's wrong?" I retaliated before I go in. "There's something you need to know, ...
You’re a people pleaser, aren’t you? You’re the type that can’t stand someone not liking you and showing it.” Raising his head, he laughed openly now. “That’s just...” I wanted to take a book from the shelf beside me and throw it at h...
Explain it to me." But I couldn't. I'd had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understo...
Species tend to bite sometimes during the sharing of sex but we never break the skin. There are only two ways this usually happens. I had to bite you to assert my control if we fought for dominance during sex or because I wanted to mark you to show o...
Before we even swung onto 516 Nilda was in my brother's lap and he had his hand so far up her skirt it looked like he was performing a surgical procedure. When we were getting off the bus Rafa pulled me aside and held his hand in front of my nose. Sm...
