When death has you by the throat, you don't mince words.

Start thinking for yourself, ask 'why?' and even venture to say 'why should I?' and pretty soon you will have half the world at your throat for being a 'trouble maker'.

Inside her head or out in the desert was the same, and the air inside her throat was very dry to keep from crying and her neck sore from forcing herself not to look down, not to look back.

My mouth opened.It happened.Yes, with my head thrown into the sky, I started howling.Arms stretched out next to me, I howled, and everything came out of me. Visions pored up my throat and past voices surrounded me. The sky listened. The city didn't. I didn't care. All I cared about was that I was howling so that I could hear my voice and so I would remember that the boy had intensity and something to offer. I howled, oh, so loud and desperate, telling a world that I was here and I wouldn't lie down.

Dead. The words fall from my tongue and linger there like poison. A slow death hanging from my lips. I shake the thought away and swallow but I can still taste the remnants in the back of my throat. It's sour and I gag a little as tears swell behind my eyes.