This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?

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

Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.

This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you've never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help you find the wind.

Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what’s left sound natural.

Dead girl walking” the boys say in the halls. “Tell us your secrets” the girls whisper, one toilet to another. "I am that girl. I am the spaces between my thighs, daylight shinning through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

The stars whirled above us and the firecrackers blazed. The moon stood watch as drops of blood fell, careless seeds that sizzled in the snow.