I live in the borderlands. The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism. My visions echo and multiplymultiply. I don't know how to figure out what they mean. I can't tell where they start or if they will end. But I know this. If they shrink my head any more, or float me away on an ocean of pills, I will never return.

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.

I understood what triggered her earthquakes, most of them.

It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.

I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.

I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn't perfect and that makes it just right.