“she confuses everything i am, shakes the change out of my pokets and makes me want to barter with foreign currency.”

“I am blotting out pieces of my life. I am blotting out everything but this. But him. I exhale as he brushes against me, my body beginning to uncurl, to loosen at his fingertips. I am letting him wash over me, drown every part of me that I don’t need in order to kiss or to listen or to smile or to want. This is what I want. This is my drug. The pain, both skin-deep and deeper, is finally gone. Everything is gone but the quiet. And the quiet is wonderful.”

“I know I am planning to visit a "land" that is not entirely foreign, only foreign to me. As an adventurer, I am on a journey that I believe will last me my whole life. A new relationship, discovery, or awareness excites me.”

“One afternoon, I am complaining about the confusion of my age, what is expected of me versus what I want for myself.”

“I don't know how to say it exactly. Only...I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?' he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself. 'I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not.”

“I can't believeno one else can hearI am screaminginside my head.Things are moving too fast. I am going to die.I am going to die. I am going to die.My hands are shaking.I try to squeeze them, try to make it stop,but now my fists are shaking,and this shaking is working it's way through me.It must look like I am having a fit.I want to let the scream out, but I think if I start, I'll never stop.It's not supposed to be like this.I am too young to die. I don't know how to make this end,and if it doesn't, I'll have to go to the hospital,be medicated, force-fed soft foods.I don't want to be that person.I am not that person.I am not. I am not.”