As a person with terrible handwriting, I love the computer. I've waited all my life for the computer.

I watched her for a long time, memorizing her shoulders, her long-legged gait. This was how girls left. They packed up their suitcases and walked away in high heels. They pretended they weren't crying, that it wasn't the worst day of their lives. That they didn't want their mothers to come running after them, begging their forgiveness, that they wouldn't have gone down on their knees and thanked god if they could stay.

I closed my eyes to watch tiny dancers like jeweled birds cross the dark screen of my eyelids.

She wanted to wake up like Dorothy and see Michael's face peering over the side of the bed, laughing. WHY, YOU JUST HIT YOUR HEAD. But it was not a dream and there was no Kansas and he was never coming back.

But I knew one more thing. That people w ho denied who they were or where they had been were in the greatest danger.

A cliche is like a coin that has been handled too much. Once language has been overly handled, it no longer leaves a clear imprint.

...You know the mistrust of heights is the mistrust of self, you don't know whether you're going to jump.