“My breath in the cold air was bleach that accidentally spilled on a black t-shirt.”

“I closed my eyes and the roof was gone. I could see the stars while the piano tinkled. I could see Jupiter and it was blue, and Neptune was silver like a tennis ball sprayed silver. I could reach out and touch it, like cold water.”

“The stars are always up in the sky...then when it is perfectly black, they feel less vulnerable and out they come.”

“The night was a typewriter key that got stuck and kept punching all the letters on top of the others until all that was left was a black blob. No word, no letter, no message in the night for me.”

“When she said sweet things in my ear, it would slide right down into my heart”

“I went into the room and sat next to Linus on the bed. I put my hand on his shoulder. I was always surprised at how soft other people were. I thought I felt his heartbeat, although it could have been my own.”

“I turned to the page on decorated buttons and tried to ponder their beauty instead of my own loneliness, trying to will myself into being a sociopath.”