Life is much different from the days when there were lilies in my mother’s garden, and all my secrets fit into a paper cup.

Time was our very first king. We all live our lives to the aggressive ticking of the clock. We don't question that our lives are a grid of seconds; even our pulses oblige. No succeeding king can hope to hold this kind of power.

Love is not enough to keep any of us alive.

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.

The madness of youth made me unafraid.

We were his disposable things. Brought to him like cattle. Stripped of what made us sisters or daughters or children. There was nothing that he could take from us—our genes, our bones, our wombs—that would ever satisfy him. There was no other way that we would be free.

There's a hazy smile on her lips that won't go away, and her hair is a mess. It's like a brushfire filled with casualties.