There are so many of us, so many girls. The world wants us for our wombs or our bodies, or it doesn't want us at all.

I don't dare touch her. Loss is a knowledge I'm sorry to have. Perhaps the only thing worse than experiencing it, is watching it replay anew in someone else--all the awful stages picking up like a chorus that has to be sung.

Ah, love. That’s what the world has lost. There’s no more love, only the illusion of it.

Lovers are weapons, but love is a wound.

Eventually I realize that I am holding on to him just as tightly as he holds on to me. And here we are: two small dying things, as the world ends around us like falling autumn leaves.

We can change so many times in our lives. We're born into a family, and it's the only life we can imagine, but it changes. Buildings collapse. Fires burn. And the next second we're someplace else entirely, going through different motions and trying to keep up with this new person we've become.

It doesn't matter how much his mother loves him; love is not enough to keep any of us alive.