Everybody told me to be a man. Nobody told me how.

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

You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.

Why are you being so mean?" "Friends tell friends the truth." "yeah, but not to hurt, to help.

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.

The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.

Too much sun after a Syracuse winter does strange things to your head, makes you feel strong, even if you aren't.