Laurie Halse Anderson

Why?_ She nods. __he had everything: a family who loved her, friends, activities. Her mother wants to know why she threw it all away?_ Why you want to know why? Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and falls off, roll in coarse salt, then put on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight. Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all __ disappointment._ Puke and starve and cut and drink because you need an anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it__ too late because you are mainlining it now, straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can__ stop. Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everythingsinglething is wrong with you. __hy?_ is the wrong question. Ask __hy not?

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.

Slush is frozen over. People say that winter lasts forever, but it's because they obsess over the thermometer. North in the mountains, the maple syrup is trickling. Brave geese punch through the thin ice left on the lake. Underground, pale seeds roll over in their sleep. Starting to get restless. Starting to dream green.

It doesn't matter where I go, I don't want to be there. And then I get to the next place, and I don't want to be there either.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

Tell me this is a nightmare

Having a friend made everything else suck less.

Why are you being so mean?___riends tell friends the truth.___eah, but not to hurt. To help.

I need a new friend. I need a friend, period. Not a true friend, nothing close or share clothes or sleepover giggle giggle yak yak. Just a pseudo-friend, disposable friend. Friend as accessory. Just so I don't feel or look so stupid.

The gloaming that closed over us the cemetery had crawled inside his skin.

It was hard to know how to play the game when the rules kept changing.

Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.

My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn't think I would make it.

I had let down my shields, that was the problem. The crazy inside Dad had infected me, weakened me so that when Finn smiled, I'd been vulnerable. I'd dropped my shields and let myself pretend that somebody like Finn would want to be with somebody like me.

I looked in the mirror and realized that I was already dead. I let you kill me one piece at a time, starting when I was, what? Eight years old? Nine? You killed yourself and then you came after us.

It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.

I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.