It (suicide) became a possibility like Maybe when I grow up, I will be dead. Life was a cake that looked good on the bakery shelf but turned to sawdust and salt when I ate it.

I hated this. I hated knowing what I wanted and knowing what was right and knowing they weren't the same thing.

Wake me up Wake me up, you said But I was sleeping, too I was dreaming But now I"m waking up Still waking up I can see the sun

I can see her clearly, standing on the rock beside Peg Gratton, unflinching before Eaton and the rest of the race committee. I can't remember when I've been that brave, and it shames me. The truth is, I feel myself being fascinated and repelled by her; She's both a mirror of myself and a door to part of the island that i'm not. It's like when the mare goddess looked into my eye; I felt that there was a part of myself that I didn't know.

As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.

This summer-sweet night is only one minute upon one minute upon another Beautiful cacophony, sugar upon lips, dancing to exhaustion I thought of you, before this minute upon another minute upon another Until, numb, my lips fell onto the mouth of another, and I was undone. ~from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter which is a fictional book in Ballad: A gathering of faerie

Nothing had changed. Nothing.