There is warmth shooting through my broken body where there should be pain, and I put my arms around the back of his neck and I hold on to him. I hold on because you never know in this place when something good will be taken away.

When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.

We are stronger than we've credited ourselves to be. We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.

When we're alive, life consumes us. But when we die, all of the color and the motion is gone so quickly, it's as though it can no longer stand to be wasted on us.

I figured it out eventually," she says. She's sitting on the edge of the gurney again; her features slowly materialize as my vision clears. "It's momentum." "What?" I whisper. The feeling returning to my lips, spreading out to my fingertips and toes. "Momentum," she repeats. "You can't just stand there if you want something to fly. You have to run.

It's never right to give up on someone.