Ellen Hopkins

Real love finds you once, if you're lucky.

I nod, because I do understand. I'm just not sure how to go about divorcing myself from the evil I've already accepted.

Happiness, you see, its just an illusion of Fate, a heavenly sleight of hand designed to make you believe in fairy tales. But there's no happily ever after. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books.

Anger is easier than forgiveness.

Love is more than blind. It's brain-dead.

Am I more afraidOf taking a chance andlearning I'm somebodyI don't know, or of risking new territory,only to find I'm the sameold me? There is comfortin the tried and true.Breaking groundmight uncover a sinkhole,one impossible to climb outof. And setting sail inuncharted watersmight mean capsizing intoa sea monster's jaws.Easier to turn my back onthese thingsthan to try tjem and fail.And yet, a whisper insistsI need to know if they are oraren't integral to me.Status quo is a swamp.And stagnation is slow death.

...what good would it do toshutter your windows, neverdream of rainbows or find hopein promises? Why choose to walk awayrather than hold your groundand fight for love?

I wonder how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin - it's the rest of the world that's wrong. I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?

Our past may shape us, but it doesn't define who we become.

Afraid to die loveless. Because I think if you die without knowing love in this life, that's how you'll spend eternity. Alone. Frozen. Do you think hell is fiery? I don't. I think hell is frozen.

Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside that you didn't dare let them escape, in case they blew you wide open?

Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside that you didn__ dare let them escape, in case they blew you wide open

Dream bigger before you can't remember to dream at all.

You were a summer gift, one I'll always treasure. You were a dream I never wanted to wake up from. You opened my eyes to things I'll never really see. You're the best thing that will ever happen to me.

In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses.At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home.And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.

Forgiveness isn__ my best thing.Easier staying pissed. But I__tired of being pissed all the time.Tired of feeling hurt by stuff thatcan never be fixed because it isan indelible part of the past.

Me? Beautiful? I'm plain as cardboard. That may be how you see yourself, but the rest of the world would be hard to agree. You shine brighter than the Milky Way.Now there are those who might try to take that from you, but you don't have to give it away. Keep on shining Pattyn.And when the right young man comes along, he'll love you all the more for giftin' this sad planet with your light.

LightThat's how I feel-like the winter-fringedbreeze might scoopme up into its wings,flyaway with me trappedin its feathered embrace.I am a snowflake.A wisp of eiderdown,liberatedfrom gravity. My bodyis light. Ephemeral.My head is light.I want to swaybeneaththe weight of air,dizzy with thought.Light filters throughmy closed eyelids.The sun,chasing shadows,tells me I'm notafloat in dreams.