The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.

It was like looking at a knot, knowing it was a knot, but not knowing how to untie it. I had no map for this life.

Used to be that my whole body was my canvas-hot cuts licking my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs.

The constitution does not recognize different classes of citizenship based on time spent living in the country. I am a citizen, with the same rights as your son, or you. As a citizen, and as a student, I am protesting the tone of this lesson as racist, intolerant, and xenophobic.

You can tell a book is real when your heart beats faster. Real books make you sweat. Cry, if no one is looking. Real books help you make sense of your crazy life. Real books tell it true, don't hold back and make you stronger. But most of all, real books give you hope. Because it's not always going to be like this and books-the good ones, the ones-show you how to make it better. Now.

To keep up appearances, I stomp my room and slam the door.

This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.