“In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.”

“I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon, sue me. And since I don’t have a butler, I have to do it myself. So, most nights before I go to bed, I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it’s good for me, it’s the perfect way to start the day.”

“I woke up this morning for three minutes. I rolled out of bed, put on my slippers, and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. That was all I could take. I went back to sleep. I didn’t go back to bed. I just went back to sleep. I slept all day. I sleep most days. I’m asleep when I go to school, asleep when I’m telling the barista which form of caffeine I prefer. It never wakes me up, but I spend $3.50 on it anyway. I’m asleep when my professors are talking, asleep when I go to the store to pick up milk. Sometimes I wake up, but it’s terrifying so I go back to sleep right away. I want to wake up. I want to have a reason to wake up.I brush my teeth every night before bed and wonder how many times I will brush my teeth before they are clean enough to never brush again. I eat lunch and wonder how much more I will have to eat until I’m full enough to never eat again. It’s easy to sleep through routine; I guess that’s why I stay here. I wish I could be done with this life so I could finally sleep properly.”

“The WakingI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where I have to go.We think by feeling. What is there to know?I hear my being dance from ear to ear.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Of those so close beside me, which are you?God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,And learn by going where I have to go.Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Great Nature has another thing to doTo you and me, so take the lively air,And, lovely, learn by going where to go.This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.”

“My mother's perpetual now, tempting me with possibility. Weren't we silly, she might say? What was the matter with us? Let's be close again. My doomed and complicated longing surged, and I had to hang up. The two of us had no now. Our furious fires had burned everything to the ground. As I'd grown, each time I brought my mother in, called for her, or let her advise my course, I was ruptured.”

“sometimes when he touches me . i feel as though all my sins have been forgiven.”