I’m broken, I have cut myself wide open. I can see my heart and it is not what I believed it was, it is not good and kind and all the things I have always thought I am.

There's no good way to die, you know? No way I've seen, anyway. It all ends with tubes and bedpans and IVs and I just-- smoking gets me out of there. Gets me outside, gets me away from all the--" "Sick people?" I say, and she shakes her head. "Away from my life.

The truth is, I feel beyond sad. I feel empty. Numb.

The story of my life can be told in silver: in chocolate mills, serving spoons, and services for twelve. The story of my life has nothing to do with me. The story of my life is things. Things that aren’t mine, that won’t ever be mine. It’s all I’ve ever known. I wish it wasn’t.

I want to lie down on the bench then, or better yet, on the grass, rest on something living and see if I can hear the dead underneath.

It could be enough, maybe, or at least a start, but the problem is that at night I tumble into dreams that aren't dreams at all. I tumble into memories and wake up aching for a dying world and a quiet, cold life that offered me nothing but sitting in a still room.

School is just like having a job. You have to show up, you have to do your work, and you have to be around tons of idiots or mean people. Now that I think about it, it's worse than having a job. At least there you get paid.