Vulnerability gives us freedom, power and connects us to a network of injured souls. It is through the art of being real that we can heal ourself and others.

Okay. I've got one. Do you think Pluto should still be considered an actual planet in its own right?'Much better. And yes, I do. I had to memorize the planets when I was in third grade, and it was one of them, and I don't like having to relearn things.

I hate Hera.

As much as we strive towards the light, we still want to be embraced by the shadow.

But at home, that same day he'd jumped into the fountain, he'd gotten so anxious, pacing around the living room listening to his parents try to calm him, that he suddenly just lost it completely and slapped his face. He immediately started crying, confused and guilty, looking up at his parents like he had no idea how it happened. And, really, that's the way it always was with the hitting. It would happen so fast, his body shaking to release the tension that built up from all the thoughts swirling through his mind and all the air he was having trouble breathing and all the loud beating of his own heart ringing in his ears. It had to get out and that was the path it chose. Slap. Instant relief.

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.

But I can now understand why people read, why they like to get lost in somebody else's life. Sometimes I'll read a sentence and it will make me sit up, jolt me, because it is something that I have recently felt but never said out loud. I want to reach into the page and tell the characters that I understand them, that they're not alone, that I'm not alone, that it's ok to feel like this. And then the lunch bell rings, the book closes, and I'm plunged back into reality.

I'm stuck in between a nightmare and lost dreams.

I was pretty sure if I tried to sing, all I would cause was an avalanche.

Human experience is not nest and orderly, ready to be coded into predetermined categories. Real life is messy.