Why don’t you want to see your mom? Did she burn yourdolls in a sacrificial fire? Read your e-mail?She wants to run my life, I explain.What a bitch. It’s like she thinks she’s your motheror something....
This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?
There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs.
The good soldier swears to kill. Fire the cannon, mount the barricade, lock and load. Smell your brother's blood on your shirt. Wipe your sister's brains off your face. Die, if you have to, so they'll...
Sometimes I think high school is one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become and adult. I hope it's worth it.
My timing is perfect, and I wind up in a traffic jam. The cars around me are driven by fat cows and bellowing bulls. We roll along, six mph. I can run faster than this. We brake. They chew their cud a...
Mr Freeman: Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag. He sticks his finger down his throat. The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees. Think about...
Look at the stupid, poor people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people, look at their dead baby. It's death porn for the masses.
It would have eased her mind if I thanked her for wanting to buy me away from Madam. I tried to be grateful but could not. A body does not like being bought and sold like a basket of eggs, even if the...
I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way.... I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself.
I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etchi...
I closed my eyes and let my enemy win.
I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of...
I am locked into the mirror and there is no door out.
I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.
Ghosts are waiting in the shadows of the room, patient dull shimmers. The others can see them, too, I know it. We’re all afraid to talk about what stares at us from the dark.
Everyone is born a freak, notes Hayley. Every newborn baby, wet and hungry and screaming, is a fresh-hatched freak who wants to have a good time and make the world a better place. . . . Most teenagers...
Defense lawyer did his jobby attacking the victimshouting that she drank, she danced,she dressed to look goodshe wanted it, she followed himliked it roughor planned on marriage or extortionas she crie...
You been too strong, she said firmly. I know about that. Strong starts out being the right thing. Your hands grow strong enough for your work. Your back strengthens under your burdens. Soon your mind...
We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one...