Fix What's Broken Quotes

Fix me," I commanded him. "This thing, what I've done - there's something wrong with me, Noah. Fix it." Noah's expression broke my heart as he brushed my hair from my face, and skimmed the line of my neck. "I can't" "Why not?" I asked, my voice threatening to crack. "Because," he said, "You're not broken.

This is what love does. In the stories, love healed your wounds, fixed what was broken, allowed you to go on. But love wasn’t a spell, some kind of benediction to be whispered, a balm or a cure-all. It was a single, fragile thread, which grew stronger through connection, through shared hardship and trust.

You deserve better. I can’t promise you I’ll stay around, not because I don’t want to. It’s hard to explain. I’m a fuckup. I’m broken, and no one can fix it. I’ve tried. I’m still trying. I can’t love anyone because it’s not fair to anyone who loves me back. I’ll never hurt you, not like I want to hurt Roamer. But I can’t promise I won’t pick you apart, piece by piece, until you’re in a thousand pieces, just like me. You should know what you’re getting into before getting involved.

God knows we’re all drawn toward what’s beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it’s only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver.

There are some people—people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we're all drawn toward what's beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be; its only by love and sacrifice so great that it destroys the giver.

You can run away from yourself so often, and so much, just because the broken pieces of you cut your feet too deeply if you stay around for too long. But then what if someone were to come along and pick up those pieces for you? Then you wouldn't have to run away from yourself anymore. You could stop running. If someone sees you as something worth staying with— maybe you'll stay with yourself, too.

The only excuse I can think of is the truth – she’s broken. Until someone can figure out how to fix her, what else can she do?

Inertia is so easy—don't fix what's not broken. Leave well enough alone. So we end up accepting what is broken, mistaking complaining for action, procrastinating for deliberation.

We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

Perfectionism is the belief that something is broken - you. So you dress up your brokenness with degrees, achievements, accolades, pieces of paper, none of which can fix what you think you are fixing.

I was in the winter of my life- and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell sleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour and memories of them were the only things that sustained me, and my only real happy times. I was a singer, not a very popular one, who once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet- but upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again- sparkling and broken. But I really didn’t mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is. When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I had been living- they asked me why. But there’s no use in talking to people who have a home, they have no idea what its like to seek safety in other people, for home to be wherever you lay your head. I was always an unusual girl, my mother told me that I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing me due north, no fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide as wavering as the ocean. And if I said that I didn't plan for it to turn out this way I’d be lying- because I was born to be the other woman. I belonged to no one- who belonged to everyone, who had nothing- who wanted everything with a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn’t even talk about- and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me. Every night I used to pray that I’d find my people- and finally I did- on the open road. We have nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore- except to make our lives into a work of art.

Alec isn’t happy,” said Magnus, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Of course he isn’t,” Isabelle snapped. “Jace—” “Jace,” said Magnus, and his hands made fists at his sides. Isabelle stared at him. She had always thought that he didn’t mind Jace; liked him, even, once the question of Alec’s affections had been settled. Out loud, she said: “I thought you were friends.” “It’s not that,” said Magnus. “There are some people — people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we’re all drawn toward what’s beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it’s only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver.” Isabelle shook her head slowly. “You’ve lost me. Jace is our brother, but for Alec — he’s Jace’s parabatai too —” “I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, his voice rising in pitch. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left—” “Stop it!” Isabelle clapped her hands over her ears, then lowered them slowly. “How dare you, Magnus Bane,” she said. “How dare you make this worse than it is —” “Isabelle.” Magnus’ hands loosened; he looked a little wide-eyed, as if his outburst had startled even him. “I am sorry. I forget, sometimes . . . that with all your self-control and strength, you possess the same vulnerability that Alec does.” “There is nothing weak about Alec,” said Isabelle. “No,” said Magnus. “To love as you choose, that takes strength. The thing is, I wanted you here for him. There are things I can’t do for him, can’t give him . . .” For a moment Magnus looked oddly vulnerable. “You have known Jace as long as he has. You can give him understanding I can’t. And he loves you.” “Of course he loves me. I’m his sister.” “Blood isn’t love,” said Magnus, and his voice was bitter. “Just ask Clary.

I mean, I don’t know how the world broke. And I don’t know if there’s a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don’t you just feel we’re becoming more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces - they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no set rules in life. You do what you have to do to survive. If that means running away from the love of your life to preserve your sanity, you do it. If it means breaking someone’s heart so yours doesn’t break; do it. Life is complicated — too much so for there to be absolutes. We are all so broken. Pick up a person, shake them around and you’ll hear the rattling of their broken pieces. Pieces our fathers broke, or our mothers, or our friends, strangers, or our loves. Olivia has stopped rattling quite as much as she used to. Love is a God-given tool, she tells me. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don’t need anymore. I believe her. Our love has been fixing each other. I hope to only hear a tiny jingle when I shake her in a few years

Every time we fix something that broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that an act of magic. And what makes it magic is that we choose to create or help, just as we can choose to harm.

Quote taken from Chapter 1 of The Corpse Wore Gingham: "You love to figure out things as much as I do,” Piper said. “Like what?” Bill asked. “You fix broken stuff,” Piper replied. “Repairing a broken toaster or steam iron is far different than unraveling a murder mystery," Bill said.

Regret couldn't fix what he's broken. Apologies couldn't bring back what he's lost. What we'd lost.

Relationships may become wrecked by a quirky syndrome: the “Ain't broke, don't fix”-syndrome. When there is no interaction in the neural network and no breakthrough into the mind but only a shallow skin experience, living together might be very torturous. If a heartfelt bond has not been molded, nothing can be broken and thus nothing needs to be fixed. (“I wonder what went wrong.”)

What is the point of hiring smart people, we asked, if you don’t empower them to fix what’s broken?

I fix what's broken - except in the heart.

Remember what I told you about need versus want? We don't need you because that implies you had to fix something in us. We were never broken. We want you, Wallace. Every piece. Every part. Because we're family. Can you see the difference?

Rather than wandering around in problem-solving mode all day, thinking mainly of what you want to fix about yourself or your life, you can pause for a few moments throughout the day to marvel at what’s not broken.

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet.

Well, that’s what this quest is all about, isn’t it?’ said Nico, facing forward. ‘We have to fix what’s been broken.’ ‘I love that about you, Nico di Angelo.

I used to think that cruelty required malice, but that is not true. Jeanine has no reason to act out of malice. But she is cruel because she doesn't care what she does, as long as it fascinates her. I may as well be a puzzle or a broken machine she wants to fix. She will break open my skull just to see the inner workings of my brain; I will die here, and that will be the merciful thing.

And Maud bakes cookies, because when the darkness is too heavy to bear and too many things have been broken in too many ways to ever be fixed again, Maud doesn't know what weapon to use if one can't use dreams.

There is no such thing as beyond repair. You're breathing, aren't you? You're still alive--that means you can fix what you've broken.

Genya—” David tried. “Don’t you dare,” she said roughly, tears welling up again. “You never looked at me twice before I was like this, before I was broken. Now I’m just something for you to fix.” I was desperate for words to soothe her, but before I could find any, David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried. David furrowed his brow. “I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.

Shepherd Book: What are we up to, sweetheart? River: Fixing your Bible. Book: I, um... What? River: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense. Shepherd Book: No, no. You-you-you can't... River: So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem. Shepherd Book: Really? River: We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat. Shepherd Book: River, you don't fix the Bible. River: It's broken. It doesn't make sense. Book: It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you.

People say that time heals all wounds, and maybe they're right. But what if the wounds don't heal correctly, like when cuts leave behind nasty scars, or when broken bones mend together, but aren't as smooth anymore? Does it mean they're really healed? Or is it that the body did what it could to fix what broke...

I don't know what I need, or even what I want, from her or from anybody. There's no way to tell her the truth, because the truth is that my heart is broken, and I don't think there''s any chance of it being sewn back together. This is permanent. It can't be fixed.

I was in the winter of my life- and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell sleep with vision of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three year down the line of being on an endless world tour and memories of them were the only things that sustained me, and my only real happy times. I was a singer, not very popular one, who once has dreams of becoming a beautiful poet- but upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again- sparkling and broken. But I really didn’t mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is. When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I had been living- they asked me why. But there’s no use in talking to people who have a home, they have no idea what its like to seek safety in other people, for home to be wherever you lied you head. I was always an unusual girl, my mother told me that I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing me due north, no fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiviness that was as wide as wavering as the ocean. And if I said that I didn’t plan for it to turn out this way I’d be lying- because I was born to be the other woman. I belonged to no one- who belonged to everyone, who had nothing- who wanted everything with a fire for every experience and an obssesion for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn’t even talk about- and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me. Every night I used to pray that I’d find my people- and finally I did- on the open road. We have nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore- except to make our lives into a work of art. LIVE FAST. DIE YOUNG. BE WILD. AND HAVE FUN. I believe in the country America used to be. I belive in the person I want to become, I believe in the freedom of the open road. And my motto is the same as ever- *I believe in the kindness of strangers. And when I’m at war with myself- I Ride. I Just Ride.* Who are you? Are you in touch with all your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you’re free to experience them? I Have. I Am Fucking Crazy. But I Am Free.

You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark, or sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what's broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it's broken, you are automatically disqualified.

People that hold onto hate for so long do so because they want to avoid dealing with their pain. They falsely believe if they forgive they are letting their enemy believe they are a doormat. What they don’t understand is hatred can’t be isolated or turned off. It manifests in their health, choices and belief systems. Their values and religious beliefs make adjustments to justify their negative emotions. Not unlike malware infesting a hard drive, their spirit slowly becomes corrupted and they make choices that don’t make logical sense to others. Hatred left unaddressed will crash a person’s spirit. The only thing he or she can do is to reboot, by fixing him or herself, not others. This might require installing a firewall of boundaries or parental controls on their emotions. Regardless of the approach, we are all connected on this "network of life" and each of us is responsible for cleaning up our spiritual registry.

Not only do we all have magic, it's all around us as well. We just don't pay attention to it. Every time we make something out of nothing, that's an act of magic. It doesn't matter if it's a painting or a garden, or an abuelo telling his grandchildren some tall tale. Every time we fix something that's broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that's an act of magic. And what makes it magic is that we *choose* to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. But it's so easy to destroy and so much harder to make things better. That's why doing the right thing makes you stronger. If we can only remember what we are and what we can do, nobody can bind us or control us.

I know who you are. I know what you do to me. Just having you near me fixes everything that is broken inside of me. All of my fucked up little pieces become one.

According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn't speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did. Still, it's an apt metaphor for our profession. But there's another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family. Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get "fixed." It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to God's glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his.

Tikkun olam.” Exactly. Basically, it says that the world has been broken into pieces. All this chaos, all this discord. And our job - everyone’s job - is to try to put the pieces back together. To make things whole again.” And you believe that?” I guess I do. I mean, I don’t know how the world broke. And I don’t know if there’s a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don’t you feel we’re becoming more and more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces - they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.” Do you really think it’s getting worse? I mean, aren’t we better off than we were twenty years ago? Or a hundred?” We’re better off. But I don’t know if the world’s better off. I don’t know if the two are the same thing.” You’re right.” Excuse me?” I said, ‘You’re right.’” But nobody ever says, ‘You’re right.’ Just like that.” Really?” Really.” …Then it hits me. Maybe we’re the pieces,” What?” Maybe that’s it. With what you were talking about before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn’t that we’re supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we’re the pieces. Maybe, what we’re supposed to do is come together. That’s how we stop the breaking.” Tikkun olam.

The thing about Wes," Delia said to me, unwrapping another package of turkey, "is that he thinks he can fix anything. And if he can't fix it, he can at least do something with the pieces of what's broken.

Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn't want you to? asked the rooster promptly. "Yes," answered Kenny," if you write them a very nice poem." "What is an only goat?" "A lonely goat," answered Kenny. The rooster shut one eye and looked at Kenny. "can you hear a horse on the roof?" he asked. "If you know how to listen in the night," said Kenny. "Can you fix a broken promise?" "Yes," said Kenny,"if it only looks broken,but really isn't." The rooster drew his head back into his feathers and whispered, "What is a very narrow escape?" "When somebody almost stops loving you," Kenny whispered back.

But there's another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family. Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

There are no photos here, as there were in the woman’s flat. Only books. “You got any good ones, then?” she asks, scanning the shelves. “I don’t know what you think is good,” the woman answers carefully. “Do you have any Harry Potters?” “No.” “Not even one?” Elsa asks, incredulous. “No.” “You have all these books and not a single Harry Potter? And they let you fix people whose heads are broken?

See, when something’s broken, you don’t just throw it away,” Ethan explained, his deep voice taking on the gentle, patient cadence he reserved solely for her. “You try to fix it, to understand what’s wrong and make it right.

We don't get all better; we don't fix everything that's broken. We just learn how to work around the broken bits. How to do the best we can with what we have, and who we are.

It isn't about winning a game, it about fixing what's broken.

Because there’s nothing wrong with me,” Alec says. “You know what is? Our society is so screwed up from top to bottom, everything about it, that it’s become impossible to fix. It’s easier to change people and make them fit into something that’s broken. Know what I mean?

'I'm sorry' won't fix what's been broken.  It can't reverse time or undo the damage or change anything that happened.  But a sincere, humble apology can serve to soften the sting and sometimes do a pretty good patch up job.

You know what happens when someone dies?' Delia said suddenly, startling me a bit. I kept putting together my sandwich, though, not answering: I knew there was more. 'It's like, everything and everyone refracts, each person having a different reaction'...'When Wish died, it just knocked the wind out of me. Truly. It's like that stupid thing bert and Wes do, the leaping out thing, trying to scare each other: it was the biggest gotcha in the world.' She looked down at the sandwiches. 'I'd just assumed she'd be okay. It had never occurd to me she might actually just be... gone. You know?'...'And then she was,' Delia said, her hand on the bread bag. 'Gone. Gotcha. And suddenly I had these two boys to take care of, plus a newborn of my own. It was just this huge loss, this huge gap, you know'...'Some people... they can just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just ... something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remebering and getting on at the same time.' I envied Delia. At least she knew what she was up against. Maybe that's what you got when you stood over your grief, facing it finally. A sense of its depths, its area, the distance across, and the way over or around it, whichever you chose in the end.

Every time you come up against something difficult, you just want to make it go away, and you think the way to do that is self-flagellation. You’re obsessed with punishment. But that’s not how this works, Birdie. You going to prison fixes nothing. You hanging from the gallows fixes nothing. The world’s still broken. A war’s still coming. The only way to properly make amends is to stop it, which you don’t want to do, because really what this is about is your being afraid.

What’s working, and how can we do more of it?” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: “What’s broken, and how do we fix it?

Sometimes I think I live in a gap between two worlds, one world that I have to wake up to, be adherent of the rules and live in a place that is dictated by others. A place I sometimes feel the fear of aging and dying before I have figured out what it is I am here to do. That other world is sweet, fresh and misty, inviting adventure into the unknown, melding ancient wisdom with new discovery; the sunlight turning into moonlight and the spell of eternal life is never broken. Perhaps in that gap I should repair the forgotten bridge from one side to the other, but truth be told, I don't want to. I don't want to because I don't have the energy to fix what is broken within. I am a wild, wandering nomad, I belong everywhere and nowhere all at the same time, and in that gap between worlds, I am free.

The other thing about moments that are given to us? They’re limited. We don’t get an endless amount. If you miss them, they’re gone. Time machines don’t exist; you can’t go back and fix what’s been broken.

Fix me," I commanded him. "This thing, what I've done- there's something wrong with me, Noah. Fix it." Noah's expression broke my heart as he brushed my hair from my face and skimmed the line of my neck. "I can't." "Why not?" I asked, my voice threatening to crack. Noah lifted both his hands to my face, and held it. "Because," he said, "you aren't broken.

I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. It comes from shared experience, from knowing how it feels to be broken. Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps.

At the word sacrifice, something sparked in the Fate's cold eyes. He held the girl tighter, carrying her in his bloodstained arms as he stood and started down the ancient hall. 'What are you doing?' A crack of alarm showed in the queen's implacable face. 'I'm going to fix this.' He continued marching forward, holding the girl close as he carried her back through the arch. The angels who'd been guarding it now wept. They cried tears of stone as the Fate set the girl at their feet and began wrenching stone after stone from the arch. 'Jacks of the Hollow,' warned the queen. 'Those arch stones can only be used one time to go back. They were not created for infinite trips to the past.' 'I know,' Jacks growled. 'I'm going to go back and stop your son from killing her.' The queen's face fell. For a moment, she looked as old as the years she'd spent lying in suspended state. 'This is not a small mistake to fix. If you do this, Time will take something equally valuable from you.' The Fate gave the queen a look more vicious than any curse. 'There is nothing of equal value to me.

I can't pretend to be all better because that's what you want.

You won’t like hearing this, but sometimes you can’t fix what you broke. Sometimes you just have to live with it.

Sometimes things get broken and people make mistakes. It's just what happens. And then, if you're lucky, they get fixed again, before it's too late.

Jay sat down across from Chelsea and took both of her hands in his. The oversized lunchroom was buzzing with activity, and he practically had to yell to be heard. "Chelsea, for the love of everything good and holy, please ... please stop ruining my friend." Violet bit her lip to stop from laughing at the two of them. She knew what he was talking about before he even explained. It was the new facial hair. Chelsea jerked her hands out of his. "Oh, relax, drama queen. He's not broken. Besides, I'm gonna fix him this weekend." Jay seemed relieved.

Probably falling in love is always a little like that: You discover that one other person who understands what no one else seems to, which is that the world is broken and can never, ever be fixed. You can stop pretending, at least for a little while. You can both admit it, if only to each other.

God’s been fixing broken people ever since sin came into the world. Give Him time. He’s not done. God promises He will work for the good in all things. What happened to you isn’t beyond His ability to recover.

We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

I think you've been hurt too much from an early age. You were trying to fix the world that broke you. When that didn't work you pretended you weren't broken. But you don't have to pretend with me, because no matter what you do I'll always accept you.

Change always happens... We adjust to it. Somehow we figure out a way. We straighten what we can or learn how to like something a little crooked. That's how it is. Something breaks, you fix it as best you can. There's always a way to make something better, even if it means sweeping up the broken pieces and starting all over. That's how we keep moving, keep breathing, keep opening our eyes every morning, even when the only thing we know for sure is that we're still alive.

The world isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as it was designed to work. And we’re the ones who designed it. Which means we fucked up.

Women can say what they want about guys not listening because we are too busy trying to fix the problem. Women are always too busy trying to fix men to ever hear about our problems.

There were people in life that cared about fixing what was broken and there were people who waited for someone else to resolve their problems. Usually, I liked to think that I went for the things that I wanted, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be the one to say something, especially not in this case.

That’s what you like in a girl: cute and sad, with enough disorders that you could count them to fall asleep. The kind you can show off at parties as the latest broken thing you fixed. Where will you hang your awards for loving someone who can’t walk in a straight line without being supported? Is there room next to your collection of glasses you shattered by holding them too tightly? The blood on your hands does not make you a martyr. Do not curse when your hammers do nothing but scar her. Do not use your words to remind her that everybody else would have left by now. If she could speak, she would tell you: you think it’s beautiful to love somebody as light as me but you don’t know how heavy I had to be to become this empty.

All too often, when faced with the sadness and suffering of others, we rush to offer comfort in order to ease our own discomfort. While we are no doubt motivated by good intentions, too often we hope to relieve the awkwardness and rawness of the other's suffering. We want to give advice, to solve the problem, to fix what is broken as much to relieve our own discomfort as to genuinely help the other's hurt. Instead, Jesus invites us to come alongside, identify with those suffering and join them in their mourning.

sometimes people are broken and don’t know how to mend because they aren’t able to say what they need or deeply want. Sometimes you get to a point in life where you realize you’ve made a terrible mistake and you desperately need to fix it, but it’s so deep and bitterly ingrained you can’t start.

There's another kind of hole and that is the wound that divides family. Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

What's broken can always be fixed, what's fixed will always be broken.

You work so hard to fix yourself, but maybe what you need isn't another tactic, another book, another expert, another five-step plan. Maybe, you don't need to be fixed. Maybe, what's really holding you back is the idea that you need to be fixed. Maybe you just need to let yourself play instead of always making yourself do homework.

God is able to fix that which is broken so that what stands repaired is immeasurably greater than that which stood before it needed repair. Therefore, the most staggering brokenness conceivable is in reality the greatest opportunity imaginable.

I wrote a line in a song once: “We are never broken.” I believe that truly. It is a hard-earned belief, and rose out of many years of experiencing the opposite. I believe we forget who we are over time, and in our state of forgetfulness we struggle and employ all kinds of learned behaviors that don’t necessarily help us or bring us happiness. Each of us has a self that exists undamaged and whole, from the moment we are born, waiting to be reclaimed. My life has not been about fixing what is broken. It has been about engaging in a loving and tender archaeological dig back to my true self.

The institutional church must decide what their mandate is. If it is simply to make converts or fix those they believe to be broken, then perhaps they'll continue on with it brutally, as they have many times throughout history. But if the mandate is to love? Then they must first deal with their fear.

I took ten days off and by 11 o’clock on the first morning I had drunk fourteen cups of coffee, read all the newspapers and the Guardian and then… and then what? By lunchtime I was so bored that I decided to hang a few pictures. So I found a hammer, and later a man came to replaster the bits of wall I had demolished. Then I tried to fix the electric gates, which work only when there’s an omega in the month. So I went down the drive with a spanner, and later another man came to put them back together again. I was just about to start on the Aga, which had broken down on Christmas Eve, as they do, when my wife took me on one side by my earlobe and explained that builders do not, on the whole, spend their spare time writing, so writers should not build on their days off. It’s expensive and it can be dangerous, she said.

Kai held up the broken portscreen. "What would Cinder do? How would she fix it?" A crease formed across Torin's brow. "You want to comm for help?" "Sort of." He buried a hand in his hair, thinking, thinking. He pictured Cinder at her booth at the market. She would have known what to do. She would have - He hopped to his feet, his pulse racing, and whapped the corner of the portscreen hard on the top of the altar. Torin jerked back. Kai looked again and let out an excited whoop. Half the screen had cleared. He opened a comm. "How did you do that?" said Torin. "I don't know," he said, typing in a hasty message, "but you'd be surprised how often that works.

The children never troubled themselves about whether they were fixable or not, as they did not consider themselves broken in the first place. You may decide for yourself what to think about it, but it is worth remembering that often people who are told they need fixing are perfectly fine as they are. It is our own narrow notion of how things ought to be that is truly in need of repair.

Love is easy." He traced my eyebrow with his thumb. "Trust is what's hard. Broken hearts can be fixed. Broken trust?" His touch followed a tear down my cheek to my lips. "Trust doesn't heal. Your parents broke your trust when you were really young, it changed you, it took something away. Then the one time you let trust grow, you thought it had been broken again. That's where it can be tricky, because sometimes trust feels broken when it's only a little dented up.

And, increasingly, I find myself fixing on that refusal to pull back. Because I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here’s the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence—of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do—is catastrophe. Forget all this ridiculous ‘Our Town’ nonsense everyone talks: the miracle of a newborn babe, the joy of one simple blossom, Life You Are Too Wonderful To Grasp, &c. For me—and I’ll keep repeating it doggedly till I die, till I fall over on my ungrateful nihilistic face and am too weak to say it: better never born, than born into this cesspool. Sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins, and broken hearts. No release, no appeal, no “do-overs” to employ a favored phrase of Xandra’s, no way forward but age and loss, and no way out but death. [“Complaints bureau!” I remember Boris grousing as a child, one afternoon at his house when we had got off on the vaguely metaphysical subject of our mothers: why they—angels, goddesses—had to die? while our awful fathers thrived, and boozed, and sprawled, and muddled on, and continued to stumble about and wreak havoc, in seemingly indefatigable health? “They took the wrong ones! Mistake was made! Everything is unfair! Who do we complain to, in this shitty place? Who is in charge here?”] And—maybe it’s ridiculous to go on in this vein, although it doesn’t matter since no one’s ever going to see this—but does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end—and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it’s possible to play it with a kind of joy?

I think my heart is defective," Jillian says. I have to force myself to smile Jan looks at me. I get the joke, but for some reason it just isn't funny right now. "I can fix that," Jeremy says, taking Jillian's headband from her. He pulls out the battery and looks at the wires that run from it. He twists one of them a little with his fingers and reinserts the battery. "You are so nerdy," Jillian says. I look over at her. It's not what she said, but how she said it. It almost sounded like a compliment. "Yay," Jillian says, when he flips the switch and both hearts stay lit. Jillian takes the headband from him and slips it on. She wobbles her head making them clack together. "Jeremy," she says, grinning at him. "You fixed my broken heart.

And what, you think you can fix me?” she asks, turning in her stool to face me, shifting her body closer, so close I can smell the liquor on her warm breath as she whispers, “Think you can make me whole again? Save me from the world? Save me from myself? Fill me up, maybe fuck the feeling back into me, like the big, strong, man you are? Make me a real woman, instead of a broken little girl?” There’s a sickening sweetness to her voice that sends a chill down my spine. If I never heard a thinly veiled ‘fuck you’ before, that was certainly one for the books. I move closer to her, uncomfortably so, cocking my head slightly as I lean in, watching as her body tenses. She thinks I’m about to kiss her, my mouth just inches from hers, before I stop, my voice gritty as I say, “On the contrary, Scarlet, I don’t think you need to be fixed at all.” “No?” “No,” I say. “I think you’re perfect the way you are.

Sade jolted with Mercy’s embrace from behind. “Sade!” she cried. “You have it! You have my love, I do love you, look at me.” She got in front of him and held his face. “I’m scared of you because I’ll die if I lose you. I’m scared I’ll never be enough, or what you need. I’m scared you’ll send me away,” she sobbed, hitting him in the chest. “I can’t lose you! I love you! I just want to be good enough for you!” Sade pulled her into his arms at hearing those words. “Mercy,” he gasped. “Say it again.” “I love you,” she cried holding him tight. “I love you so much. I never want to be apart from you." “I’m too fucking broken for you Mercy.” She shook her head and cried, “No! Don’t say that! I can fix it! We can fix it, and if we can’t,” she gasped, “we can be broken together,

Danny looked stunned. “But what about the people who care about you?” I shook my head. “They shouldn’t waste their time … I’m not gonna change. I can’t be fixed Danny!” I wiped ferociously at the tears that were falling down my cheeks and threw him a challenging look. “I’m not trying to fix you Darcie.” Danny told me softly, his eyes boring into mine. “But you have to realise that everyone’s a little bit broken and all they need is someone to help fill in the holes and cracks – that’s all.

Because it is the hardness of the floor, and the abrupt halt in momentum, and the unyielding nature of the surface, that causes a thing to crack. Even if it is not that thing's fault. And then we talk about this thing being broken, or it needing to be fixed, and not what part of the floor has played in the matter. Never the part about the floor being a constant threat. Even if it is a nice floor. Even if everybody wants one just like it.

I poisoned my skin,” Genya said harshly, “my lips. So that every time he touched me—” She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. “Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body.” She clenched her fists. “He brought this on himself.” “But the poison would have affected you too,” Nikolai said. “I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time.” Her fists clenched. “It was well worth it.” Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Did he force you?" Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai's jaw ticked.” -//- She held up her hands, warding us off. “I don’t want your pity,” she said ferociously. Her voice was raw, wild. We stood there helplessly. “You don’t understand.” She covered her face with her hands. “None of you do.” “Genya—” David tried. “Don’t you dare,” she said roughly, tears welling up again. “You never looked at me twice before I was like this, before I was broken. Now I’m just something for you to fix.” I was desperate for words to soothe her, but before I could find any, David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried. David furrowed his brow. “I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.

Later, at the sink in our van, Mama rinsed the blue stain and the odd spiders, caterpillars, and stems from the bucket. "Not what we usually start with, but we can go again tomorrow. And this will set up nicely in about six, eight jars." The berries were beginning to simmer in the big pot on the back burner. Mama pushed her dark wooden spoon into the foaming berries and cicrcled the wall of the pot slowly. I leaned my hot arms on the table and said, "Iphy better not go tomorrow. She got tired today." I was smelling the berries and Mamaa's sweat, and watching the flex of the blue veins behind her knees. "Does them good. The twins always loved picking berries, even more than eating them. Though Elly likes her jam." "Elly doesn't like anything anymore." The knees stiffened and I looked up. The spoon was motionless. Mama stared at the pot. "Mama, Elly isn't there anymore. Iphy's changed. Everything's changed. This whole berry business, cooking big meals that nobody comes for, birthday cakes for Arty. It's dumb, Mama. Stop pretending. There isn't any family anymore, Mama." Then she cracked me with the big spoon. It smacked wet and hard across my ear, and the purple-black juice spayed across the table. She started at me, terrified, her mouth and eyes gaping with fear. I stared gaping at her. I broke and ran. I went to the generator truck and climbed up to sit by Grandpa. That's the only time Mama ever hit me and I knew I deserved it. I also knew that Mama was too far gone to understand why I deserved it. She'd swung that spoon in a tigerish reflex at blasphemy. But I believed that Arty had turned his back on us, that the twins were broken, that the Chick was lost, that Papa was weak and scared, that Mama was spinning fog, and that I was an adolescent crone sitting in the ruins, watching the beams crumble, and warming myself in the smoke from the funeral pyre. That was how I felt, and I wanted company. I hated Mama for refusing to see enough to be miserable with me. Maybe, too, enough of my child heart was still with me to think that if she would only open her eyes she could fix it all back up like a busted toy.

I am a person. I am not always happy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; sometimes I feel sad, sometimes I feel angry. Sometimes I see brokenness in the world and I feel like I'm dying inside because I want to fix it! I am a person. I am not continuously grateful for everything and everyone 100% of the time. Because sometimes, I don't feel grateful! Sometimes I feel betrayed, other times I feel deceived. Because I am a person. And I am tired of the schools of thought and the judgmental eyes that offer up their plates of useless opinion when I am not 100% floating up there in false pretenses of perfection. I do not want to be false. I want to be a person. And I want to feel and I want to think, and no, not everything in life is something to be grateful for; and no, not everything in the world is something to be happy about. I am a person. My face can do a lot of things aside from smiling. My face can look peaceful, it can look thoughtful, it can look Divine. I can frown and sometimes my eyebrows are scrunched up in the middle; that's because I'm thinking! I am a person. A person that is so much more than what popular opinion expects is the definition of perfection. But I AM perfect. I am perfect the very way that I am. And I would never want to be only what popular thought would expect of me. I am so much more than that.

I know.” He said it so matter-of-fact that I took a step back. “I’ve always known you’d never hurt me.” “Then why would you ask about Jeff, or think I was going to leave?” Morgan’s smile was subtle. “Because you’re the one who doesn’t trust. Me, yourself, even your faraway island. You doubt everything. And people who can’t trust, eventually run.” He took a step forward, and even though I didn’t mean to, I took a step back. “You don’t believe in yourself. You’re scared of getting lost. Getting hurt. Being trapped.” I bumped the coffee table, stumbled, and wound up sitting on my ass. Morgan pushed his way between my knees and cupped my face. He continued to hold my gaze. Never had he looked at me with so much knowledge of who I was shining in his eyes. “Love is easy.” He traced my eyebrow with his thumb. “Trust is what’s hard. Broken hearts can be fixed. Broken trust?” His touch followed a tear down my cheek to my lips. “Trust doesn’t heal. Your parents broke your trust when you were really young, it changed you, it took something away. Then the one time you let trust grow, you thought it had been broken again. That’s where it can be tricky, because sometimes trust feels broken when it’s only a little dented up. "But it still feels like you’re losing bits and pieces of yourself.” Closer, his exhale ghosted my lips. “Now you’re scared to trust me because you might lose everything you have left.

And, increasingly, I find myself fixing on that refusal to pull back. Because I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here’s the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence—of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do—is catastrophe. Forget all this ridiculous ‘Our Town’ nonsense everyone talks: the miracle of a newborn babe, the joy of one simple blossom, Life You Are Too Wonderful To Grasp, &c. For me—and I’ll keep repeating it doggedly till I die, till I fall over on my ungrateful nihilistic face and am too weak to say it: better never born, than born into this cesspool. Sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins, and broken hearts. No release, no appeal, no “do-overs” to employ a favored phrase of Xandra’s, no way forward but age and loss, and no way out but death.

When you make a mistake with metal, you can melt things down and start afresh. It is irritating, and it costs in time and soot and sweat, but it can be done. There is a comfort in iron, knowing that a fresh start is always possible. But a city is not a sword. It is a living thing, and living things defy simple fixing. Roots cannot be reforged. They scar, and broken branches must be cut and sealed with tar, and this makes me angry, as it always has, and my anger has no place to go. It was easier when I was young. I could use my anger like a hammer against the world. I was so sure of myself and my friends and my rightness. I would hammer at the world, and breaking felt like making to me, and I was good at it. And while I was not wrong, neither was I entirely right. Nothing is simple. I do not work in wood. I am not brave enough for that. There is a comfort in iron, a promise of safety, a second chance if mistakes are made. But a city is more a forest than a sword. No, it needs more tending than that. Perhaps a city is like a garden, then. So these days, it seems I have become a gardener. I dig foundations in the earth. I sow rows of houses. I plan and plant. I watch the skies for rain and ruin. I cannot help but think that you would be better at this, but circumstance has put both of us in our own odd place. You are forced to be a hammer in the world, and my ungentle hands are learning how to tend a plot of land. We must do what we can do. Did you know that there are some seeds that cannot sprout unless they are first burned? A friend once told me that. She was– she was a bookish sort. I think of gardening constantly these days. I wear your gift, and I think of you, and I think it is interesting that there are some living things that need to pass through fire before they flourish. I ramble. You have the heart of a gardener, and because of this, you think of consequence, and your current path pains you. I am not wise, and I do not give advice, but I have come to know a few things: sometimes breaking is making, even iron can start again, and there are many things that move through fire and find themselves much better for it afterward.

I have it so good. So absurdly, improbably good. I didn't do anything to deserve it, but I have it. I'm healthy. I've never gone hungry. And yes, to answer your question, I'm- I'm loved. I lived in a beautiful place, did meaningful work. The world we made out there, Mosscap, it's- it's nothing like what your originals left. It's a good world, a beautiful world. It's not perfect, but we've fixed it so much. We made a good place, struck a good balance. And yet every fucking day in the City, I woke up hollow, and... and just... tired, y'know? So, I did something else instead. I packed up everything, and I learned a brand-new thing from scratch, and gods, I worked hard for it. I worked really hard. I thought, if I can just do that, if I can do it well, I'll feel okay. And guess what? I do do it well. I'm good at what I do. I make people happy. I make people feel better. And yet I still wake up tired, like... like something's missing. I tried talking to friends, and family, and nobody got it, so I stopped bringing it up, and then I stopped talking to them altogether, because I couldn't explain, and I was tired of pretending like everything was fine. I went to doctors, to make sure I wasn't sick and that my head was okay. I read books and monastic texts and everything I could find. I threw myself into my work, I went to all the places that used to inspire me, I listened to music and looked at art, I exercised and had sex and got plenty of sleep and ate my vegetables, and still. Still. Something is missing. Something is off. So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?

Are you persuaded of what you do or not? Do you need something to happen or not in order to do what you do? Do you need the correlations to coincide always, because the end is never in what you do, even if what you do is vast and distant but is always in your continuation? Do you say you are persuaded of what you do, no matter what? Yes? Then I tell you: tomorrow you will certainly be dead. It doesn't matter? Are you thinking about fame? About your family? But your memory dies with you,with you your family is dead. Are you thinking about your ideals? You want to make a will? You want a headstone? But tomorrow those too are dead, dead. All men die with you. Your death is an unwavering comet. Do you turn to god? There is no god, god dies with you. The kingdom of heaven crumbles with you, tomorrow you are dead, dead. Tomorrow everything is finished—your body, family, friends, country, what you’re doing now, what you might do in the future, the good, the bad, the true, the false, your ideas, your little part, god and his kingdom, paradise, hell, everything, everything, everything. Tomorrow everything is over—in twenty four hours is death. Well, then the god of today is no longer yesterday’s, no longer the country, the good, the bad, friends, or family. You want to eat? No, you cannot. The taste of food is no longer the same; honey is bitter, milk is sour, meat nauseating, and the odor, the odor sickens you: it reeks of the dead. You want a woman to comfort you in your last moments? No, worse: it is dead flesh. You want to enjoy the sun, air, light, sky? Enjoy?! The sun is a rotten orange, the light extinguished, the air suffocating. The sky is a low, oppressive arc. . . .No, everything is closed and dark now. But the sun shines, the air is pure, everything is like before, and yet you speak like a man buried alive, describing his tomb. And persuasion? You are not even persuaded of the sunlight; you cannot move a finger, cannot remain standing. The god who kept you standing,made your day clear and your food sweet, gave you family, country, paradise—he betrays you now and abandons you because the thread of your philopsychia is broken. The meaning of things, the taste of the world, is only for continuation’s sake. Being born is nothing but wanting to go on on: men live in order to live, in order not to die. Their persuasion is the fear of death. Being born is nothing but fearing death, so that, if death becomes certain in a certain future, they are already dead in the present. All that they do and say with fixed persuasion, a clear purpose, and evident reason is nothing but fear of death– ‘indeed, believing one is wise without being wise is nothing but fearing death.

I've always been his favorite." "Is that so?" Lazily Shelby folded her arms behind her head. She could picture him as a boy,seeing beyond what other boys saw and storing it. "Why?" "If I weren't modest,I'd confess that I was always a well-mannered, even-tempered child who never gave my parents a moment's trouble." "Liar," she said easily. "How'd you get the broken nose?" The grin became rueful. "Rena punched me." "Your sister broke your nose?" Shelby burst out with delighted and unsympathetic laughter. "The blackjack dealer, right? Oh,I love it!" Alan caught Shelby's nose between two fingers and gave it a quick twist. "It was rather painful at the time." "I imagine." She kept right on laughing as he shifted to her side. "Did she make a habit of beating you up?" "She didn't beat me up," he corrected with some dignity. "She was trying to beat Caine up because he'd teased her about making calf's eyes at one of his friends." "Typical brotherly intimidation." "In any event," Alan put in mildly, "I went to drag her off him,she took another swing,missed him, and hit me. A full-power roundhouse,as I remember. That's when," he continued as Shelby gave another peal of laughter, "I decided against being a diplomat. It's always the neutral party that gets punched in the face." "I'm sure..." Shelby dropped her head on his shoulder. "I'm sure she was sorry." "Initially.But as I recall, after I'd stopped bleeding and threatening to kill both her and Caine, her reaction as a great deal like yours." "Insensitive." Shelby ran apologetic kisses over his face. "Poor baby. Tell you what, I'll do penance and see about fixing you breakfast.

The laws of nature are a description of how things actually work in the past, present and future. In tennis, the ball always goes exactly where they say it will. And there are many other laws at work here too. They govern everything that is going on, from how the energy of the shot is produced in the players’ muscles to the speed at which the grass grows beneath their feet. But what’s really important is that these physical laws, as well as being unchangeable, are universal. They apply not just to the flight of a ball, but to the motion of a planet, and everything else in the universe. Unlike laws made by humans, the laws of nature cannot be broken—that’s why they are so powerful and, when seen from a religious standpoint, controversial too. If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn’t take long to ask: what role is there for God? This is a big part of the contradiction between science and religion, and although my views have made headlines, it is actually an ancient conflict. One could define God as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of as God. They mean a human-like being, with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe, and how insignificant and accidental human life is in it, that seems most implausible.

I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over. The door was locked. “I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!” Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights. “Dad!” I said, throwing my arms around his waist. He let me keep them there, but all I got in return was a light pat on the back. “You’re safe,” he told me, in his usual soft, rumbling voice. “Dad—there’s something wrong with her,” I was babbling. The tears were burning my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to be bad! You have to fix her, okay? She’s…she’s…” “I know, I believe you.” At that, he carefully peeled my arms off his uniform and guided me down, so we were sitting on the step, facing Mom’s maroon sedan. He was fumbling in his pockets for something, listening to me as I told him everything that had happened since I walked into the kitchen. He pulled out a small pad of paper from his pocket. “Daddy,” I tried again, but he cut me off, putting down an arm between us. I understood—no touching. I had seen him do something like this before, on Take Your Child to Work Day at the station. The way he spoke, the way he wouldn’t let me touch him—I had watched him treat another kid this way, only that one had a black eye and a broken nose. That kid had been a stranger. Any hope I had felt bubbling up inside me burst into a thousand tiny pieces. “Did your parents tell you that you’d been bad?” he asked when he could get a word in. “Did you leave your house because you were afraid they would hurt you?” I pushed myself up off the ground. This is my house! I wanted to scream. You are my parents! My throat felt like it had closed up on itself. “You can talk to me,” he said, very gently. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I just need your name, and then we can go down to the station and make some calls—” I don’t know what part of what he was saying finally broke me, but before I could stop myself I had launched my fists against him, hitting him over and over, like that would drive some sense back into him. “I am your kid!” I screamed. “I’m Ruby!” “You’ve got to calm down, Ruby,” he told me, catching my wrists. “It’ll be okay. I’ll call ahead to the station, and then we’ll go.” “No!” I shrieked. “No!” He pulled me off him again and stood, making his way to the door. My nails caught the back of his hand, and I heard him grunt in pain. He didn’t turn back around as he shut the door. I stood alone in the garage, less than ten feet away from my blue bike. From the tent that we had used to camp in dozens of times, from the sled I’d almost broken my arm on. All around the garage and house were pieces of me, but Mom and Dad—they couldn’t put them together. They didn’t see the completed puzzle standing in front of them. But eventually they must have seen the pictures of me in the living room, or gone up to my mess of the room. “—that’s not my child!” I could hear my mom yelling through the walls. She was talking to Grams, she had to be. Grams would set her straight. “I have no child! She’s not mine—I already called them, don’t—stop it! I’m not crazy!

The Winding Stair My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, 'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all thought is done: Who can distinguish darkness from the soul My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was, Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass Unspotted by the centuries; That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn From some court-lady's dress and round The wodden scabbard bound and wound Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war? Think of ancestral night that can, If but imagination scorn the earth And intellect is wandering To this and that and t'other thing, Deliver from the crime of death and birth. My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it Five hundred years ago, about it lie Flowers from I know not what embroidery - Heart's purple - and all these I set For emblems of the day against the tower Emblematical of the night, And claim as by a soldier's right A charter to commit the crime once more. My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows And falls into the basin of the mind That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, For intellect no longer knows Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known - That is to say, ascends to Heaven; Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. II My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies? - How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest

I do not know whether it is an act of faithfulness to her or a betrayal of the dignity she never lost, to say that she had bitten her tongue, to say that there was blood flowing across her mouth and lips which my brother kept wiping away. I do not know whether I have the right to say, though I will do so, that her body was shaken with epileptic tremors and that she took enormous, terrifying breaths that went on and on until you could not believe she had the strength for them. I do not know whether, as we thought at the time, she could feel our hands on her forehead and cheek, or whether she had waited until we were both there to die. I did not say 'I am here'. I did not say anything. Her mouth was open wide, as in those portraits by Francis Bacon of caged prisoners in their final extremity. I watched and listened to those terrifying, rattling, hoarse breaths, wondering at the strength remaining in her aged body and at the violence it still had to endure. I looked over at my brother as if he might know, as if he might understand whether she had the strength to continue. He was stroking her forehead, whispering soundlessly to her, attempting even at this moment to reach behind the veil and find her. If you believe that she knew we were there, if you believe--I cannot be sure--that she understood what her sons needed at that instant, her eyes which had been shut and which, by being closed, made her seem completely out of our reach, suddenly opened. Blue-grey eyes, staring up into the ceiling above her sons' heads, upwards, ever upwards, fixed like an exhausted swimmer on the shore. Then her eyes closed and she took the largest, most violent breath of all, and we watched and waited, stood and looked at each other, felt for her pulse and slowly, as seconds turned into minutes, realized that she would never breathe again. There is only one reason to tell you this, to present the scene. It is to say that what happens can never be anticipated. What happens escapes anything you can ever say about it. What happens cannot be redeemed. It can never be anything other than what it is. We tell stories as if to refuse this truth, as if to say that we make our fate, rather than simply endure it. But in truth we make nothing. We live, and we cannot shape life. It is much too great for us, too great for any words. A writer must refuse to believe this, must believe there is nothing that cannot somehow be said. Yet there at last in her presence, in the unending unfolding of that silence, which still goes on, which I still expect to be broken by another drawing in of breath, I knew that all my words could only be in vain, and that all that I had feared and all that I had anticipated could only be lived--without their help or hers.