Jandy Nelson

Remember how it was when we kissed? Armfuls and armfuls of light thrown right at us. A rope dropping down from the sky. How can the word love and the word life even fit in the mouth?

Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?

People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn't. It continues and is ever-changing.

She's a people-mechanic and always knows when I'm malfunctioning.

Mom has a massive sunflower for a soul so big there's hardly any room in her for organs. Jude and me have one soul between us that we have to share: a tree with its leaves on fire. And Dad has a plate of maggots for his.

How could a mother who boils water for pasta leave two little girls behind?

Because how could he have done this?How could he have chosen to leave me here all alone?

The sky's gone blue: azure, the ocean bluer: cerulean, the trees are swirls of every hella freaking green on earth and bright thick eggy yellow is spilling over everything.

For the sun, stars, oceans, and all the trees, I__l consider it.

Was the sky always this shade of magenta?

Are you an artist?""I'm a mess is what I am," he says, holding on to the building for support. "A bloody mess. You 're the artist, mate." Then he's gone.

Good. That is it. You will see with your hands, I promise you.

No I contradict myself. Picasso he do too. He say pull out your brain, yes, he also say, 'Painting is a blind man's profession' and 'To draw you must close your eyes and sing.' And Michelangelo, he say he sculpts with his brains, not his eyes. Yes. Everything ia true at once. Life is contradiction. We take in every lesson. We find what works. Okay, now pick up the charcoal and draw.

Nor that he's regarding my face with the same intensity I am his. We're two paintings staring at each other across a room.

And I see that his brown eye has a splash of green in it and the green one a splash of brown. Like Cezanne painted them. Impressionist eyes.

SELF PORTRAIT: Throwing Armfuls of Air into the Air

The worst thing that could ever happen to Noah has happened. He's become normal.

Mom has a massive sunflower for a soul so big there's hardly any room in her for organs.