“Standing HereMy entire world far beneathmy feet, I should be filledwith pride. Instead, I feeloverwhelmed by a sense of defeat.Suddenly it comes to me,toes tempted to test the ledge,that there is a way out of this.Clam surety flows throughmy veins, and as I turn to wavegood-bye, I wonder if it willhurt or if a single personwill cry at my funeral.I take a deep breath, a finaltaste of sweet mountain air.I conjure Leona, Emily.Move my feet closer. CloserThere's Grandma One, GrandmaTwo, and their spouses, waitingfor me. I see Dad. Cara. Mommy.I screw up my courage, step over”

“I can't take not knowing what the next day will bring- the uncertainty is sawing me in two. The room is dark. A flickering candle burns on the window ledge a few feet away. I take a deep breath, which is to say, as deep a breath as I can take."Are you okay?" Sarah asks.I wrap my arms around her. "I miss you," I say."You miss me? But I'm right here.""That's the worst way to miss somebody. When they' re right beside you and you miss them anyway.”

“My sense of touch was floating six feet away from me; if anyone entered my room, I would cry out, but the knife was serenely cutting me up. Yes, I became a skeleton. At night my thinness would rise up before me to terrify me. As it came and went it insulted me, it tired me out; oh, I was certainly very tired.”

“I want a woman, Dad. I want somebody to love me. I wanna to be free again. I wanna walk in the backyard on the grass. I wanna put my bare feet in the ocean. I wanna run along the sand and feel it on my feet. I wanna stand up in the shower with the hot water streaming down my legs, in the morning...I wanna explode, Dad. I wanna get out of this fucking body I'm in. I wanna be a man again...I just wanna be a man again.”

“I should curl up in a ball and cry. Instead i think about everything in the whole entire world that makes me angry - There is a lot, oh, there is a lot - and I start singing Justin Bieber at the top of my lungs.”

“My body becomes a raft and there's this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow. To close my eyes and let it take me. But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes - the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.”