Wanna rock you, girl, with a butterfly tunic. / No, I'm not gay, I'm just your emo enuch. / Gonna smile real shy, won't cop a feel, / 'cause I'm your virgin crush, your supersafe deal. / Let those other guys keep sexing. / You and me, we be texting / 'bout unicorns and rainbows and our perfect love. / Girl, we fit together like a hand in a glove. / Now I don't mean that nasty, tell your mum don't get mad. / I even wrote 'You're awesome' on your maxi pads.

It is a giggle full of high spirits and merry mischief, proof that we never lose our girlish selves, no matter what sort of women we become.

She bestowed the blessing of a wild girl's lips.

Men have feelings too, you know. You bruise the petals of my manflower.

Retribution is a dog chasing its tail.

Time has no meaning. I feel as if I have been left in the desert to die and am eagerly awaiting the vultures to begin their work and end my misery.

Come awake, Tom. Fathers can willfully hurt their children. They can be addicts too weak to give up their vices, no matter the pain it causes. Mothers can turn you invisible with neglect. They can erase you with a denial, a refusal to see. Friends can deceive you. People lie. It is a cold, hard world. I do not blame Nell Hawkins for retreating from it into a madness of her own choosing.