I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.

I don't say anything and I feel awful. I tell somebody and I feel worse. I'm having trouble finding a middle ground.

She looks like a china doll, observed Grandfather as we departed. I will break just as easily, I muttered.

I am not going to think about it. It was ugly, but it’s over, and I’m not going to think about it.

I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life.

We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better. Then it melts. The bus drivers rev their engines and the ice cloud shatters. Everyone shuffles forward. They don't know what just happened. They can't remember.

Each reader has to find her or his own message within a book.