“Sanity is a sonnet with a strict meter and rhyme scheme-and my mind is free verse.”

“I feel as exposed as a sweatshirt worn wrong-side-out, or like pocket linings dangling outside of a pair of jeans. My heart, my hope, hang in the afternoon sun.”

“There's a book of poetryin the lines of my handsthat no one wants to read”

“For the first time in what seems like eons, my body doesn't feel so clenched, so hot. And suddenly, I realize that the dot out there on my horizon line--the same dot everything in my world points to, like in the one-point perspective sketches Mom taught me how to draw--it's not any old spot, you know. It's not some charcoal smudge. It's peace.”

“They say it's the woman's prerogative to change her mind. But that's wrong. Guys are the one who get to say, "You know what? I don't want to be with you after all." They get to say it after they've sucked all the sweetness out of you, just like those cheap, liquid filled wax candy things we used to get for Halloween. They leave you dried up, empty piece of wax, and head off to find somebody else who still has some sweetness inside.”

“My tears are like a whole pack of dogs on leashes; no matter how I try to tug them back, they just keep barreling forward.”

“When he looks back at me, his eyes travel around my face the way fingers dart through the bottom of a drawer, searching for batteries in a blackout.”