Jandy Nelson

I look into his sorrowless eyes and a door in my heart blows open. And when we kiss, i see that on the other side of that door is sky.

Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already, because I don't get any of it.

Maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people," I say. "Maybe we're accumulating these new selves all the time.

I can't shove the dark out of my way.

I don't know how this can be but it can: A painting is both exactly rhe same and entirely different every single time you look at it.

As I walk through the redwood trees, my sneakers sopping up days of rain, I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes, when grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe.

Sadness pulses out of us as we walk. I almost expect the trees to lower their branches when we pass, the stars to hand down some light. I breathe in the horsy scent of eucalyptus, the thick sugary pine, aware of each breath I take, how each one keeps me in the world a few seconds longer. I taste the sweetness of the summer air on my tongue and want to just gulp and gulp and gulp it into my body--this living, breathing, heart-beating body of mine.

I don't believe time heals. I don't want it to. If I heal, doesn't that mean I've accepted the world without her?

For days and days, the rain beat its fists on the roof of our house_ evidence of the terrible mistake God had made. Each morning, when I woke I listened for the tireless pounding, looked at the drear through the window and was relieved that at least the sun had the decency to stay the hell away from us.

That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other.

I drop on my back on the bed, panting and sweating. How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? People die all the time. Every day. Every hour. There are families all over the world staring at beds that are no longer slept in, shoes that are no longer worn. Families that no longer have to buy a particular cereal, a kind of shampoo. There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. For years. For their whole lives. I don't believe time heals. I don't want it to. If I heal, doesn't that mean I've accepted the world without her?

Someone might as well roll up the whole sky, pack it away for good.

When I wear her clothes, I just feel safer, like she's whispering in my ear.

I'm in self-imposed exile, cradled between split branches, in my favorite tree in the woods behind school. I've been coming here every day at lunch, hiding out until the bell rings, whittling words into the branches with my pen, allowing my heart to break in private.

There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds.

I do not want to eat or drink, or i will lose the taste of you in my mouth

What if I'm in charge of my own damn light switch?

The coolest guys aren't afraid to be feminists.