A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.

Tell me about yourself." "Myself?" He looks confused. "Yes," I say, patting the mattress. "You know all there is to know," he says, sitting beside me. "Not true," I say. "Where were you born? What's your favourite season? Anything." "Here. Florida," he says. "I remember a woman in a red dress with curly brown hair. Maybe she was my mother, I'm not sure. And summer. What about you?" The last part is said with a smile. He smiles so infrequently that I consider each one a trophy.

Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free.

We writers are resilient souls.

There is no choice for him but to believe. He has nothing left to give in offering.

I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.

She’s a commodity in a sea of broken girls.