It strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day - you can think you know them - and then you fшnd out you hardly know them at all.

We stand there for a moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I feel our connection so strongly it's as though it achieves physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping us together, protecting us. This is what people are always talking about when they talk about god: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected. feeling this way seems about as close to saying a prayer as you could get.

We can never understand. We can only try, fumbling our way through the tunneled places, reaching for light.

I'm not ugly but I'm not pretty either. Everything is in-between. I have eyes that aren't green or brown, but a muddle. I'm not thin but I'm not fat either. the only thing you could definitely say about me is that: I'm short

Live free or die. Four words. Thirteen letters. Ridges, bumps, swirls under my fingertips. Another story. We cling tightly to it, and our belief turns it to truth.

And it's the funniest thing: as soon as I see it, the whistling in my ears stops and the feeling of terror drains away, and I realize this whole time I haven't been falling at all. I've been floating.

No one had ever told her this basic fact: not everyone got to be loved.