I talk to God but the sky is empty.

Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were a part of me. They were my landscape.

I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life.

I must be lean & write & make worlds beside this to live in.

I'm sarcastic, skeptical, and sometimes callous because I'm still afraid, deep down, of letting myself be hurt.

How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.

One night she hid the pink cotton scarf from her raincoat in the pillowcase when the nurse came around to lock up her drawers and closets for the night. In the dark she had made a loop and tried to pull it tight around her throat. But always just as the air stopped coming and she felt the rushing grow louder in her ears, her hands would slacken and let go, and she would lie there panting for breath, cursing the dumb instinct in her body that fought to go on living