“I felt a Cleaving in my Mind—As if my Brain had split—I tried to match it—Seam by Seam—But could not make it fit.”

“I see that if you try to fit someone in a box, she might slip through the seams like water and become her own river.”

“Terror starts picking at the seams of my mind, throwing hateful words like rapture and holocaust at me.”

“It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again.”

“At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.”

“Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. ”