Tahereh Mafi

“The sky is raining bricks right into my skull.”

“My words wear no parachutes as they fall out of my mouth.”

“You're my bird," I tell him. "You're my bird and you're going to help me fly away.”

“Life is a bleak place. Sometimes you have to learn how to shoot first.”

“You think that because I am unwanted, because I am neglected and-and discarded-" My voice inches higher with every word, the unrestrained emotions suddenly screaming through my lungs. "You think I don't have a heart? You think I don't feel? You think that because I can inflict pain, that I should? You're just like everyone else. You think I'm a monster just like everyone else. You don't understand me at all.”

“I have a curse.I HAVE A GIFT.I'm a monster.I'M MORE THAN HUMAN.My touch Is lethal.MY TOUCH IS POWER.I am their weapon.I WILL FIGHT BACK.”

“There is a distinct flavor of panic lodged somewhere underneath my tongue and I'm fighting to remember where it came from.”

“My eyes are two professional pickpockets, stealing everything away in my mind. I lose track of the minutes we trample over.”

“My eyes break open. Two shattered windows filling my mouth with glass.”

“They say our world used to be green. Our clouds used to be white. Our sun was always the right kind of light.”

“She is a walking weapon in society, is what the teachers said. We've never seen anything like it, is what the doctors said. She should be removed from your home, is what the police officers said.No problem at all, is what my parents said.”

“Look at me, is what I wanted to say to you. Talk to me every once in a while. Find me a cure for these tears, I'd really like to exhale for the first time in my life”

“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.”

“But I'm shocked by the tenderness in his voice. The sincerity with which he wants to know. He's like a feral dog, crazed and wild, thirsty for chaos, simultaneously aching for recognition and acceptance.Love.”

“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.”

“Hope is a pocket of possibility.I'm holding it in my hand.”

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.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.”

“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.”

“My life is four walls of missed opportunities poured in concrete molds.”

“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 hope he doesn't know he just touched my leg.And nothing happened.”

“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.”

“Why are you touching me?""Because I can.”

“His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him. In seventeen years no one has said my name like that”

“We're here, and it's nighttime. So according to my calculations, we must not have done anything stupid.”

“I'm too poor to afford the luxury of hysteria right now.”

“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.”

“Aw, you trust me?""As long as I have a clear shot." I tighten my hold on the gun in my hand.”

“Killing time isn't as difficult as it sounds.I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them bleed decimal points in the palm of my hand. I can rip the numbers off a clock and watch the hour hand tick tick tick its final tock just before I fall asleep. I can suffocate seconds just by holding my breath. I've been murdering minutes for hours and no one seems to mind.”

“I study every quivering branch, every imposing soldier, every window I can count. My eyes are two professional pickpockets, stealing everything to store away in my mind.”

“Hope in this world bleeds out of the barrel of a gun.”

“It's okay," he whispers. "You'll be okay."Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never ever sleeps, is what I don't tell him. I'll never be okay.”

“I never thought it would get this bad. I never thought the Reestablishment would take things so far. They're incinerating culture, the beauty of diversity. The new citizens of our world will be reduced to nothing but numbers, easily interchangeable, easily removable, easily destroyed for disobedience.We have lost our humanity.”

“They say there were birds who used to soar through the skies like planes.It seems strange that a small animal could achieve anything as complex as human engineering, but the possibility is too enticing to ignore.”

“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.”

“He leaves less than a foot of space between us and I'm 10 inches away from spontaneous combustion.”

“My body is a carnivorous flower, a poisonous houseplant, a loaded gun with a million triggers and he's more than ready to fire.”

“You're absolutely delicious when you're angry." "Too bad my taste is poisonous for your palate.”

“Adam stares at me so long I begin to blush. He tips my chin up so I meet his eyes. Blue blue blue boring into me. His voice is deep, steady. "I don't think I've ever heard you laugh."He's so excruciatingly correct I don't know how to respond except with the truth. My smile is tucked into a straight line. "Laughter comes from living." I shrug, try to sound indifferent. "I've never really been alive before.”

“I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.”

“You can't touch me," I whisper. I'm lying, is what I don't tell him. He can touch me, is what I'll never tell him. Please touch me, is what I want to tell him.”

“I always wonder about raindrops.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.My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab.”

“Traditional homes of our old world have been abandoned, windows shattered, roofs collapsing, red and green and blue paint scrubbed into muted shades to better match our bright future.”

“The soldiers stomp stomp stomp through the rain, crushing leaves and fallen snow under their feet. Their hands are wrapped in gloves wrapped around guns that could put a bullet through a million possibilities.”

“I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

“I tuck caution into my pocket and hope I can reach for it if I need to.”

“He’s wrong he’s so wrong he’s more wrong than an upside-down rainbow.But everything he said is right.”

“I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.”

“I'm wearing dead cotton on my limbs and a blush of roses on my face.”

“we write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are.”