Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.

I would never be popular. I didn't want to be; I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.

There is nothing wrong with me. These are really sick people, sick that you can see.

So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.

I showed her how I'd been making tiny cuts in my skin to let the badness and the pain leak out. They were shallow at first, and short, like claw marks made by a desperate cat that wanted to hid under the front porch. Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and my family and my life stolen, made it easier not to care.

You were born with the seeds of your talent, the ability to observe the world around you and weave piece of it into a story. I believe that most -- if not all -- people are born with these seeds. What separates the writers from the non-writers is that the writers actually sit down and, you know... write.

Did you read last nights assignments?" Say "yes'" and get hammered again. Say "no'" and the same thing would happen.