In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
“Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch.”
“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
“I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.”
“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
“Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.”
“You and I, Juliette- together?
We could be unstoppable.”
“Hope is hugging me, holding me in its arms, wiping away my tears and telling me that today and tomorrow and two days from now I will be just fine and I'm so delirious I actually dare to believe it.”
“I only know now that the scientists are wrong.
The world is flat.
I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I've been trying to hold on for 17 years. I've been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it's nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.”
“I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.”
“I always wonder about raindrops."
“I begin to wonder if it’s coincidence that the one person most unafraid to touch me is a monster himself.”
"I wonder about how they're always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It's like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn't seem to care where the contents fall, doesn't seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.
I am a raindrop.
“These words are vomit. The shaky pen is my esophagus. This sheet of paper is my porcelain bowl.”
“My voice softens. 'How old are you?'
'I'll be eleven next year.'
I grin. 'So you're ten years old?'
He crosses his arms. Frowns. 'I'll be twelve in two years.'
I think I already love this kid.”
“I am nothing but novocaine. I am numb, a world of nothing, all feeling and emotion gone forever.
I am a whisper that never was.”
“Someone picked up the sun and pinned it to the sky again, but every day it hangs a little lower than the day before. It's like a negligent parent who only knows one half of who you are. It never sees how its absence changes people. How different we are in the dark.”
“Killing time isn't as difficult as it sounds."
“His voice hugs the letters in my name so softly I die 5 times in that second.”
I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them
“Girls are always talking about electricity in their romance, but none are too happy to actually be electrocuted, apparently. Bloody confusing, is what it is.”
“Find me a cure for these tears, I'd really like to exhale for the first time in my life.”
“He whispers, "You have no idea how much I've thought about you. How many times I've dreamt"-he takes a tight breath- "how many times I've dreamt about being this close to you." He moves to run a hand through his hair before he changes his mind. Looks down. Looks up. "God, Juliette, I'd follow you anywhere. You're the only good thing left in this world.”
“My life is four walls of missed opportunities poured in concrete molds.”
“Hope in this world bleeds out of the barrel of a gun.”
“I'm just messing with you guys. I like seeing psycho chick get all intense." He glances at me, lowers his voice. "I mean that as a compliment--because, you know"--he waves a haphazard hand in my direction--"psycho kind of works for you.”
“Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I’m not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all. Sometimes I’m so desperate to touch, to be touched, to feel, that I’m almost certain I’m going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me.”
"Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion.
Sometimes it just won’t let go.”
“I'm too poor to afford the luxury of hysteria right now.”
“My fingers feel their way around the surface and a surge of sunshine rushes through my stomach until I’m certain I’m bursting with hope and feeling and a force of stupid happiness so strong I’m surprised there aren’t tears streaming down my face.”
“Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never, ever sleeps.”
“One word, two lips, three four five fingers form a fist.
One corner, two parents, three four five reasons to hide.
One child, two eyes, three four seventeen years of fear.
A broken broomstick, a pair of wile faces, angry whispers, locks on my door.”
“It's been me and you against the world forever," he says. "It's always been that way.”
“He leaves less than a foot of space between us and I'm 10 inches away from spontaneous combustion.”
“My words wear no parachutes as they fall out of my mouth”
“Life is a bleak place. Sometimes you have to learn how to shoot first.”
“There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly.”
“I hate the lackadaisical ennui of a sun too preoccupied with itself to notice the infinite hours we spend in its presence.”
“Son of a motherless goat!”
“
“This must be how I broke through the concrete in Warner's torture chamber. Which means I still have no idea how I broke through the concrete in Warner's torture chamber.”
“I know the sky falls down every day.
The sun drops into the ocean and splashes browns and reds and yellows and oranges into the world outside my window. A million leaves from a hundred different branches dip in the wind, fluttering with the false promise of flight. The gust catches their withered wings only to force them downward, forgotten, left to be trampled by the soldiers stationed just below.”
“You're naked?" Kenji is suddenly studying my sheet and not bothering to be subtle about it.I flush despite my best efforts, flustered, frustrated. "Blondie said they destroyed my clothes." "Blondie?" Blond man is offended.”
“... shit happens. We deal with it, and we find a way to survive. You`re not the only one with the problems.”
“Go to Hell."
He works his jaw. Walks to the door. "I'm working on it.”
“Every butterfly in the world has migrated to my stomach.”
"A boy.
Dear God.
They’re trying to kill me.
They’ve done it on purpose."
“And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.”
"I’ve been locked up for 264 days. I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet. I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation.
6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being."
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