I missed her then but it was an odd sort of missing because by then, I knew the meaning of forever.

You look invincible,' my mother said one night. I loved these times, when we seemed to feel the same thing. I turned to her, wrapped in my thin gown, and said: I am.

The damage can fester under layers of time and change, and an ignorant, thoughtless remark can easily reopen the wound.

There wasn't a lot of bullshit in my heaven.

I stared at her black hair. It was shiny like the promises in magazines.

Please don't let Daddy die Susie," he whispered. "I need him.

I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand