I Feel Like Vomiting Quotes

how come you're so ugly?" "my life has hardly been pretty — the hospitals, the jails, the jobs, the women, the drinking. some of my critics claim that i have deliberately inflicted myself with pain. i wish that some of my critics had been along with me for the journey. it’s true that i haven't always chosen easy situations but that's a hell of a long ways from saying that i leaped into the oven and locked the door. hangover, the electric needle, bad booze, bad women, madness in small rooms, starvation in the land of plenty, god knows how i got so ugly, i guess it just comes from being slugged and slugged again and again, and not going down, still trying to think, to feel, still trying to put the butterfly back together again…it’s written a map on my face that nobody would ever want to hang on their wall. sometimes i’ll see myself somewhere…suddenly…say in a large mirror in a supermarket…eyes like little mean bugs…face scarred, twisted, yes, i look insane, demented, what a mess…spilled vomit of skin…yet, when i see the “handsome” men i think, my god my god, i’m glad i’m not them

I jerked my hand back and looked up, horrified. “The ground feels like skin!” A slow smile crept onto Hades’ face. “Zeus got bored with the whole rock and eagle bit.” Rock and eagle bit...? Then it hit me. “Prometheus?” “You’re standing on him,” Hades remarked. My stomach turned. “Oh gods, I think I’m going to vomit.” “Perfect,” the god said.

Why did you do it?" I say. "You want me dead. You were willing to do it yourself! What changed?" He presses his lips together and doesn't look away, not for a long time. Then he opens his mouth, hesitates, and finally says, " I can't be in anyone's debt. Okay? The idea that I owed you something made me sick. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to vomit. Indebted to a stiff? It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And I couldn't have it.

I deleted Tinder from my phone, then hit play on About Time again, wondering why picturing myself in any sort of romantic or sexual situation made me feel like I was going to vomit and/or run a mile, while romance in movies felt like the sole purpose of being alive.

How To Tell If Somebody Loves You: Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin. You didn’t ask for these things, but this person went ahead and did it anyway. They don’t want to see you looking like a fool with eyelashes and crumbs on your face. They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage! Somebody loves you if they assume the role of caretaker when you’re sick. Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? Fake a case of food poisoning and text them being like, “Oh, my God, so sick. Need water.” Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not they REALLY love you. “That’s terrible. Feel better!” earns you a stay in friendship jail; “Do you need anything? I can come over and bring you get well remedies!” gets you a cozy friendship suite. It’s easy to care about someone when they don’t need you. It’s easy to love them when they’re healthy and don’t ask you for anything beyond change for the parking meter. Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit. Either love me with vomit in my hair or don’t love me at all. Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They’re not passive, they don’t just let you get away with murder. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They aren’t passive observers in your life, they are in the trenches. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you. Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey, babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!" It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is fucking love. Somebody loves you if they want you to be happy, even if that involves something that doesn’t benefit them. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding. When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to. Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment. Somebody loves you if they give you oral sex without expecting anything back. Somebody loves you if they don’t care about your job or how much money you make. It’s a relationship where no one is selling something to the other. No one is the prostitute. Somebody loves you if they’ll watch a movie starring Kate Hudson because you really really want to see it. Somebody loves you if they’re able to create their own separate world with you, away from the internet and your job and family and friends. Just you and them. Somebody will always love you. If you don’t think this is true, then you’re not paying close enough attention.

The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep. They could see how love might control you, from your head to your toes, not to mention every single part of you in between. A woman could want a man so much she might vomit in the kitchen sink or cry so fiercly blood would form in the corners of her eyes. She put her hand to her throat as though someone were strangling her, but really she was choking on all that love she thought she’d needed so badly. What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for it’s sake. She refused to believe in superstition, she wouldn’t; yet it was claiming her. Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene. After all I’ve done for you is lodged somewhere in her brain, and far worse, it’s in her heart as well. She was bad luck, ill-fated and unfortunate as the plague. She is not worth his devotion. She wishes he would evaporate into thin air. Maybe then she wouldn’t have this feeling deep inside, a feeling she can deny all she wants, but that won’t stop it from being desire. Love is worth the sum of itself and nothing more. But that’s what happens when you’re a liar, especially when you’re telling the worst of these lies to yourself. He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything so badly. It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None if it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop. What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She’d have to feel so much, and she’s not that kind. The greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself. She preferred cats to human beings and turned down every offer from the men who fell in love with her. They told her how sticks and stones could break bones, but taunting and name-calling were only for fools. — & now here she is, all used up. Although she’d never believe it, those lines in *’s face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she’s gone through and what she’s survived and who exactly she is, deep inside. She’s gotten back some of what she’s lost. Attraction, she now understands, is a state of mind. If there’s one thing * is now certain of, it’s house you can amaze yourself by the things you’re willing to do. You really don’t know? That heart-attack thing you’ve been having? It’s love, that’s what it feels like. She knows now that when you don’t lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that’s one recipe that can’t be tampered with. Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

I felt pure the way you feel after you vomit, kind of light and strangely holy, like having taken a sauna in hell.

When I reread what I’ve written, I feel like I’m swallowing my own vomit.

I used to be scared of anger, and that's because I bottled it up inside. Not anymore! It's like vomiting after drinking too much. Sure, it's unpleasant in the moment, but then you feel so much better! Anger is beautiful if you express it just right. Let it out.

For some reason all activity, all happiness on the part of other people made me feel like vomiting. I was aware that my own life was finished and was slowly and painfully guttering out. What earthly reason had I to concern myself with the lives of the fools, the rabble-people who were fit and healthy, ate well, slept well, and copulated well and who had never experienced a particle of my sufferings or felt the wings of death every minute brushing against their faces?

I’m filled with so much shame and anxiety every time after I eat, I literally don’t know what to do to make myself feel better except throw up. And after I’m done, I half do. Half of me feels depleted, exhausted, like there’s nothing left, which is helpful. The other half of me now has a splitting headache, a sore throat, vomit sliding down my arm and tangled in my hair, and even more shame on top of the initial shame since now I’ve not only eaten but thrown up, too. Bulimia is not the answer.

Yes?” Came the thin and reedy voice. I winced as I pushed the door open. Beth sounded terrible. And when I got an eyeful of her, she looked just as bad. Sitting up against the headboard with a mountain of blankets piled around her, she had dark circles under her eyes. Her pale, waiflike features were sharp, and her hair was an unwashed, tangled mess. I tried not to breathe too deeply, because the room smelled of vomit and sweat. I halted at the bed, shocked to my core. “Are you sick?” Her unfocused gaze drifted away from me, landing on the door to the adjoined bathroom, it didn’t make sense. Hybrids—we couldn’t get sick. Not the common cold or the most dangerous cancer. Like the Luxen, we were immune to everything out there in terms of disease, but Beth? Yeah, she wasn’t looking too good. A great sense of unease blossomed in my belly, stiffening my muscles. “Beth?” Her watery stare finally drifted to me. “Is Dawson back yet?” My heart turned over heavily, almost painfully. The two of them have been through so much, more than Daemon and I had, and this . . . God, this wasn’t fair. “No, he’s not back yet, but you? You look sick.” She raised a slim, pale hand to her throat. “I'm not feeling very well.” I didn’t know how bad this was, and I was almost afraid to find out. “What’s wrong?” One shoulder rose, and it looked like it had taken great effort. “You shouldn’t be worried,” she said, her voice low as she picked at the hem of a blanket. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll be okay once Dawson comes back.” Her gaze floated off again, and as she dropped the edge of the blanket, she reached down, put her hand over her blanket-covered belly, and said, “We’ll be okay once Dawson comes back.” “We’ll be . . . ?” I trailed off as my eyes widened. My jaw came unhinged and dropped as I gaped at her. I stared at where her hand was and watched in dawned horror as she rubbed her belly in slow, steady circles. Oh no. oh, hell to the no to the tenth power. I started forward and then stopped. “Beth, are you . . . are you pregnant?

We cannot think another’s thoughts, but we can feel their pain. Also, their pleasure, but we focus on pain because pain threatens us. We turn our eyes and block our ears and pretend it is not ours to feel. We let our brains rule our bodies. Our brains tell us we cannot withstand all the feeling, that our bodies are not capable. But we have forgotten—I have forgotten—that we heal, not through logic, not through the brain, but through discharging energy. When we have a fever, we sweat and have fever dreams that make us writhe and cry out. When we eat something rotten, we heave and vomit and shit liquid. We absorb pain and anger through the body, and we must expel it through the body, like a virus, like rot. Can I lick myself clean? Can I scale my skin? Can I molt?

I had always functioned by reacting to uncertainty and then feeling good about preventing my fears from coming true. I depended on the monster spewing out uncertainties and anxieties and feelings I didn't like so I had a direction in life. I washed, I ate, I exercised, I socialised, I worked, I studied, I dated, I did everything imaginable as a reaction to whatever the anxiety monster vomited unto my life. I lived only to react. I didn't know how to function without constantly fixing problems.

Intrigued as I was by this new dynamic of disrespect, at my core I didn’t want to be spoken to like that. It made me feel silenced, lonely, and far away from myself, a feeling that I believe, next to extreme nausea sans vomiting, is the depth of human misery.

It is the first time I am in a church and I don’t like it. It is as though they are making me eat beef and pork. The flowers and the brass and the old smell and the body on the cross make me think of the dead. The funny taste is in my mouth, my old nausea, and I feel I would vomit if I swallow.

When engaging in simple everyday banter and communications, this rule of thumb can really help suppress a lot of our negative word ‘vomit’ since we often mindlessly chat about the things we don’t like. If we refrain from expressing our negative opinions about things unless they’re directly asked for, we can train ourselves to respond rather than react the second we see or hear something and then feel we must verbalize our views about it. Remember, even if we don’t agree with someone or something, we can still speak about the subject at hand in a positive light to encourage growth rather than guilty motivation. I like to say I express more “inspirations” than “opinions” with each passing day.

Mama, I said, and then the crying came. I had not cried since I was sentenced and I had humiliated myself before a judge who didn't care. On that horrible day, my snotty sobbing had merged with Celestial and Olive's morning accompaniment. Now I suffered a cappella; the weeping burned my throat like when you vomit strong liquor. That one word, Mama, was my only prayer as I phrased on the ground like I was feeling the Holy Ghost, only what I was going through wasn't rapture. I spasmed on that cold black earth in pain, physical pain. My joints hurt; I experienced what felt like a baton against the back of my head. It was like I relived every injury of my life.. The pain went on until it didn't. and I say up, dirty and spent.

Adam wet his dry lips and tried to ask and failed and tried again. "Why do they have to do it?" he said. "Why is it?" Cyrus was deeply moved and he spoke as he had never spoken before. "I don't know," he said. "I've studied and maybe learned how things are, but I"m not even close to why they are. And you must not expect to find that people understand what they do. So many things are done instinctively, the way a bee makes honey or a fox dips his paws into a stream to fool dogs. A fox can't say why he does it, and what bee remembers winter or expects it to come again? When I knew you had to go I thought to leave the future open so you could dig out your own findings, and then it seemed better if I could protect you with the little I know. You'll go in soon now--you've come to the age." "I don't want to," said Adam quickly. "You'll go in soon," his father went on, not hearing. "And I want to tell you so you won't be surprised. They'll first strip off your clothes, but they'll go deeper than that. They'll shuck off any little dignity you have--you'll lose what you think of as your decent right to live and be let alone to live. They'll make you live and eat and sleep and shit close to other men. And when they dress you up again you'll not be able to tell yourself from the others. You can't even wear a scrap or pin a note on your breast to say, 'This is me--separate from the rest.'" "I don't want to do it," said Adam. "After a while," said Cyrus, "you'll think no thought the others do not think. You'll know no word the others can't say. And you'll do things because the others do them. You'll feel the danger in any difference whatever-- a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men." "What if I don't?" Adam demanded. "Yes," said Cyrus, "sometimes that happens. Once in a while there is a man who won't do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They'll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can't finally give in, they'll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside--neither part of themselves nor yet free. It's better to fall in with them. They only do it to protect themselves [...]

She lifted his mask and her own veil; then slowly, she placed a hand on either side of his face. Her fingers slid into his hair and Matthias’ focus shattered. It felt like she was touching him everywhere. She looked into his eyes. “Well?” “I don’t feel anything,” he said. His voice sounded embarrassingly hoarse. She arched a brow. “Nothing?” “What did you try to make me do?” “I’m trying to compel you to kiss me.” “That’s foolish.” “Why is that?” “Because I always want to kiss you,” he admitted. “Then how come you never do?” “Nina, you just went through a terrible ordeal—” “I did. That’s true. You know what would help? A lot of kissing. We haven’t been alone since we were aboard the Ferolind.” “You mean when you almost died?” said Matthias. Someone had to remember the gravity of this situation. “I prefer to think of the good times. Like when you held my hair as I was vomiting into a bucket.” “Stop trying to make me laugh.” “But I like your laugh.” “Nina, this is not the time to flirt.” “I need to catch you off your guard, otherwise you’re too busy protecting me and asking me if I’m okay.” “Is it wrong to worry?” “No, it’s wrong to treat me like I might break apart at any moment. I’m not that fine or that fragile.

Homewrecker" Every boyfriend is the one Until otherwise proven The good are never easy The easy never good And love it never happens like you think it really should Deception and perfection are wonderful traits One will breed love The other hate You'll find me in the lonely hearts Under 'I'm after a brand new start' And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker Girls and their curls and their gourmet vomit Boys and their toys and their six inch rockets We're all very lovely 'til we get to know each other As we stop becoming friends and we start becoming lovers And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) I'm only happy when I'm on the run I break a million hearts just for fun I don't belong to anyone I guess you could say that my life's a mess But I'm still looking pretty in this dress I'm the image of deception When everything is life and death You may feel like there's nothing left Instead of love and trust and laughter What you get is happy never after But deep down all you want is love The pure kind we all dream of But we cannot escape the past So you and I will never last 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker

Do you have a piece of paper I could write on?” I jump up too fast. “Sure. Just one? Do you—of course you need something to write with. Sorry. Here.” I grab him a paper from my deskdrawer and one of my myriad pencils, and he uses the first Children of Hypnos book as a flat surface to write on. When I’m sure he’s writing something for me to read right now, I say, “I thought you only needed to do that when other people were around?” He etches one careful line after the next. He frowns, shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s . . . tough to say things. Certain things.” His voice is hardly a whisper. I sit down beside him again, but his big hand blocks my view of the words. He stops writing, leaves the paper there, and stares. Then he hands it to me and looks the other direction. Can I kiss you? “Um,” is a delightfully complex word. “Um” means “I want to say something but don’t know what it is,” and also “You have caught me off guard,” and also “Am I dreaming right now? Someone please slap me.” I say “um,” then. Wallace’s entire head-neck region is already flushed with color, but the “um” darkens it a few shades, and goddammit, he was nervous about asking me and I made it worse. What good is “um” when I should say “YES PLEASE NOW”? Except there’s no way I’m going to say “YES PLEASE NOW” because I feel like my body is one big wired time bomb of organs and if Wallace so much as brushes my hand, I’m going to jump out of my own skin and run screaming from the house. I’ll like it too much. Out of control. No good. I say, “Can I borrow that pencil?” He hands me the pencil, again without looking. Yes, but not right now. I know it sounds weird. Sorry. I don’t think it’ll go well if I know it’s coming. I will definitely freak out and punch you in the face or scream bloody murder or something like that. Surprising me with it would probably work better. I am giving you permission to surprise me with a kiss. This is a formal invitation for surprise kisses. I don’t like writing the word “kiss.” It makes my skin crawl. Sorry. It’s weird. I’m weird. Sorry. I hope that doesn’t make you regret asking. I hand the paper and pencil back. He reads it over, then writes: No regret. I can do surprises. That’s it. That’s it? Shit. Now he’s going to try to surprise me with a kiss. At some point. Later today? Tomorrow? A week from now? What if he never does it and I spend the rest of the time we hang out wondering if he will? What have I done? This was a terrible idea. I’m going to vomit. “Be right back,” I say, and run to the bathroom to curl up on the floor. Just for like five minutes. Then I go back to my room and sit down beside Wallace. As I’m moving myself into position, his hand falls over mine, and I don’t actually jump out of my skin. My control shakes for a moment, but I turn in to it, and everything smooths out. I flip my hand over. He flexes his fingers so I can fit mine in the spaces between. And we sit there, shoulder to shoulder, with our hands resting on the bed between us. It’s not so bad

Just keep in mind,” Dex warned the Council, “that if this goes anything like the time I accidentally gave her limbium, there’s going to be a lot of Sophie-vomit. So if that’s going to trigger a hurlfest for you guys, this could get really messy really fast.” “Actually, I think I have an elixir that will help with that,” Elwin told him. “I’ll grab some when I go back for Bullhorn.” “You’re bringing your banshee here?” Grady asked. Elwin nodded. “The last time I worked on Sophie’s allergy, he was the only way I knew if something was or wasn’t helping.” Right. Because banshees could tell when someone was either close to dying—or really, really, really close to dying. “Gotta say, it’s not sounding like a whole lot of fun to be the moonlark right now,” Stina mumbled. “And it’s not feeling very awesome, either.

When I was a kid my folks took me to visit Mexico City. I’ll always remember the way my father acted—loud and big. And my mother didn’t like the people because they were dark and didn’t wash enough. And my sister wouldn’t talk to most of them. I was the only one really liked it. And I can see my mother and father coming to Mars and acting the same way here. “Anything that’s strange is no good to the average American. If it doesn’t have Chicago plumbing, it’s nonsense. The thought of that! Oh God, the thought of that! And then—the war. You heard the congressional speeches before we left. If things work out they hope to establish three atomic research and atom bomb depots on Mars. That means Mars is finished; all this wonderful stuff gone. How would you feel if a Martian vomited stale liquor on the White House floor?

Those are very rational thoughts for a ten-year-old.” “What can I say? I was ten going on thirty.” “A grown-up mind in a child’s body?” “Exactly.” “How did the rest of your family take it?” “You see, when you say the word ‘family’ I think of my co-stars. My family is whoever I’m working with at the time. Or better said, ‘with whomever I’m working.’ We become a unit. It’s like, when you’re doing a movie nothing else matters in the world, just the movie and the team making the movie. You become immersed in your work, in the minds and hearts of the other actors around you. The cameramen, Make-up, Hair, the electricians . . . everybody. You are one pulsing heartbeat.” “I was referring to your father. Your brother.” I could feel my insides coil at the word “brother.” I felt sick, nauseous like I hadn’t eaten all day. That empty yet bilious feeling, coming up like vomit. “My brother is not ‘family.’ And my father?” I could feel my

I’ll send the nurse in here in a minute, okay?” Waste of time, I thought. “Okay, but…do you think there’s anything we can do about my ears?” I really didn’t want to feel this way anymore. “Marcy will be in here in just a second,” he repeated. He wasn’t acknowledging my self-diagnosis at all. What kind of doctor is this? Marcy soon entered the room with a plastic cup with a bright green lid--the perfect reflection of my skin tone. “Do you think you can give us a urine sample, hon?” she asked. I can give you a vomit sample, I thought. “Sure,” I said, taking the cup and following Marcy to the restroom like a good little patient. And don’t call me hon, I thought. I was cranky. I needed something to eat, and I felt like bursting into tears. A minute later, I exited the bathroom and handed Marcy the sample cup, which I’d wiped clean with a paper towel. “Okay, hon,” she said. “You can just head back to the room and I’ll be back in a sec.” Stop calling me hon.

Some think Grom felt the pull toward Nalia," Toraf says softly. "Maybe it's a family trait." "Well, there's where you're wrong, Toraf. I'm not supposed to feel the pull toward Emma. She belongs to Grom. He's firstborn, third generation Triton. And she's clearly of Poseidon." Galen runs his hand through his hair. "I think that if Grom were her mate, he would have found Emma somehow instead of you." "That's what you get for thinking. I didn't find Emma. Dr. Milligan did." "Okay, answer me this," Toraf says, shaking a finger at Galen. "You're twenty years old. Why haven't you sifted for a mate?" Galen blinks. He's never thought of it, actually. Not even when Toraf asked for Rayna. Shouldn't that have reminded him of his own single status? He shakes his head. He's letting Toraf's gossip get to him. He shrugs. "I've just been busy. It's not like I don't want to, if that's what you're saying." "With who?" "What?" "Name someone, Galen. The first female that comes to mind." He tries to block out her name, her face. But he doesn't stop it in time. Emma. He cringes. It's just that we've been talking about her so much, she's naturally the freshest on my mind, he tells himself. "There isn't anyone yet. But I'm sure there would be if I spent more time at home." "Right. And why is that you're always away? Maybe you're searching for something and don't even know it." "I'm away because I'm watching the humans, as is my responsibility, you might remember. You also might remember they're the real reason our kingdoms are divided. If they never set that mine, none of this would have happened. And we both know it will happen again." "Come on, Galen. If you can't tell me, who can you tell?" "I don't know what you're talking about. And I don't think you do either." "I understand if you don't want to talk about it. I wouldn't want to talk about it either. Finding my special mate and then turning her over to my own brother. Knowing that she's mating with him on the islands, holding him close-" Galen lands a clean hook to Toraf's nose and blood spurts on his bare chest. Toraf falls back and holds his nostrils shut. Then he laughs. "I guess I know who taught Rayna how to hit." Galen massages his temples. "Sorry. I don't know where that came from. I told you I was frustrated." Toraf laughs. "You're so blind, minnow. I just hope you open your eye before it's too late." Galen scoffs. "Stop vomiting superstition at me. I told you. I'm just frustrated. There's nothing more to it than that." Toraf cocks his head to the side, snorts some blood back into is nasal cavity. "So the humans followed you around, made you feel uncomfortable?" "That's what I just said, isn't it?" Toraf nods thoughtfully. Then he says, "Imagine how Emma must feel then." "What?" "Think about it. The humans followed you around a building and it made you uncomfortable. You followed Emma across the big land. Then Rachel makes sure you have every class with her. Then when she tries to get away, you chase her. Seems to me you're scaring her off." "Kind of like what you're doing to Rayna." "Huh. Didn't think of that." "Idiot," Galen mutters. But there is some truth to Toraf's observation. Maybe Emma feels smothered. And she's obviouisly still mourning Chloe. Maybe he has to take it slow with Emma. if he can earn her trust, maybe she'll open up to him about her gift, about her past. But the question is, how much time does she need? Grom's reluctance to mate will be overruled by his obligation to produce an heir. And that heir needs tom come from Emma.

tried to go to a counselor, but it was just too weird. Talking to some stranger about my feelings made me want to vomit. I did go to the library, and I learned that behavior I considered commonplace was the subject of pretty intense academic study. Psychologists call the everyday occurrences of my and Lindsay’s life “adverse childhood experiences,” or ACEs. ACEs are traumatic childhood events, and their consequences reach far into adulthood. The trauma need not be physical. The following events or feelings are some of the most common ACEs: •​being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated by parents •​being pushed, grabbed, or having something thrown at you •​feeling that your family didn’t support each other •​having parents who were separated or divorced •​living with an alcoholic or a drug user •​living with someone who was depressed or attempted suicide •​watching a loved one be physically abused. ACEs happen everywhere, in every community. But studies have shown that ACEs are far more common in my corner of the demographic world. A report by the Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund showed that among those with a college degree or more (the non–working class), fewer than half had experienced an ACE. Among the working class, well over half had at least one ACE, while about 40 percent had multiple ACEs. This is really striking—four in every ten working-class people had faced multiple instances of childhood trauma. For the non–working class, that number was 29 percent. I gave a quiz to Aunt Wee, Uncle Dan, Lindsay, and Usha that psychologists use to measure the number of ACEs a person has faced. Aunt Wee scored a seven—higher even than Lindsay and me, who each scored a six. Dan and Usha—the two people whose families seemed nice to the point of oddity—each scored a zero. The weird people were the ones who hadn’t faced any childhood trauma. Children with multiple ACEs are more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression, to suffer from heart disease and obesity, and to contract certain types of cancers. They’re also more likely to underperform in school and suffer from relationship instability as adults. Even excessive shouting can damage a kid’s sense of security and contribute to mental health and behavioral issues down the road. Harvard pediatricians have studied the effect that childhood trauma has on the mind. In addition to later negative

I try to catch my breath and calm myself down, but it isn’t easy. I was dead. I was dead, and then I wasn’t, and why? Because of Peter? Peter? I stare at him. He still looks so innocent, despite all that he has done to prove that he is not. His hair lies smooth against his head, shiny and dark, like we didn’t just run for a mile at full speed. His round eyes scan the stairwell and then rest on my face. “What?” he says. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “How did you do it?” I say. “It wasn’t that hard,” he says. “I dyed a paralytic serum purple and switched it out with the death serum. Replaced the wire that was supposed to ready your heartbeat with a dead one. The bit with the heart monitor was harder; I had to get some Erudite help with a remote and stuff--you wouldn’t understand it if I explained it to you.” “Why did you do it?” I say. “You want me dead. You were willing to do it yourself? What changed?” He presses his lips together and doesn’t look away, not for a long time. Then he opens his mouth, hesitates, and finally says, “I can’t be in anyone’s debt. Okay? The idea that I owed you something made me sick. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to vomit. Indebted to a Stiff? It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And I couldn’t have it.” “What are you talking about? You owed me something?” He rolls his eyes. “The Amity compound. Someone shot me--the bullet was at head level; it would have hit me right between the eyes. And you shoved me out of the way. We were even before that--I almost killed you during initiation, you almost killed me during the attack simulation; we’re square, right? But after that…” “You’re insane,” says Tobias. “That’s not the way the world works…with everyone keeping score.” “It’s not?” Peter raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know what world you live in, but in mine, people only do things for you for one of two reasons. The first is if they want something in return. And the second is if they feel like they owe you something.” “Those aren’t the only reasons people do things for you,” I say. “Sometimes they do them because they love you. Well, maybe not you, but…” Peter snorts. “That’s exactly the kind of garbage I expect a delusional stiff to say.” “I guess we just have to make sure you owe us,” says Tobias. “Or you’ll go running to whoever offers you the best deal.” “Yeah,” Peter says. “That’s pretty much how it is.

Hey,” I began, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been so…so pathetic since, like, the day we got married.” He smiled and took a swig of Dr Pepper. “You haven’t been pathetic,” he said. He was a terrible liar. “I haven’t?” I asked, incredulous, savoring the scrumptious red meat. “No,” he answered, taking another bite of steak and looking me squarely in the eye. “You haven’t.” I was feeling argumentative. “Have you forgotten about my inner ear disturbance, which caused me to vomit all across Australia?” He paused, then countered, “Have you forgotten about the car I rented us?” I laughed, then struck back. “Have you forgotten about the poisonous lobster I ordered us?” Then he pulled out all the stops. “Have you forgotten all the money we lost?” I refused to be thwarted. “Have you forgotten that I found out I was pregnant after we got back from our honeymoon and I called my parents to tell them and I didn’t get a chance because my mom left my dad and I went on to have a nervous breakdown and had morning sickness for six weeks and now my jeans don’t fit?” I was the clear winner here. “Have you forgotten that I got you pregnant?” he said, grinning. I smiled and took the last bite of my steak.

Rhys kept starting at the table as he said, 'I didn't know. That you were with Tamlin. That you were staying at the Spring Court. Amarantha sent me that day after the Summer Solstice because I'd been so successful on Calanmai. I was prepared to mock him, maybe pick a fight. But then I got into that room, and the scent was familiar, but hidden... And then I saw the plate, and felt the glamour, and... There you were. Living in my second-most enemy's house. Dining with him. Reeking of his scent. Looking at him like... Like you loved him.' The whites of his knuckles showed. 'And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin. I had to scare you, and Lucien, but mostly Tamlin. Because I saw how he looked at you, too. So what I did that day...' His lips were pale, tight. 'I broke into your mind and held it enough that you felt it, that it terrified you, hurt you. I made Tamlin beg- as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. Because she was going to find you. If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you. 'But I was so selfish- I was so stupidly selfish that I couldn't walk away without knowing your name. And you were looking at me like I was a monster, so I told myself it didn't matter, anyway. But you lied when I asked. I knew you did. I had your mind in my hands, and you had the defiance and foresight to lie to my face. So I walked away from you again. I vomited my guts up as soon as I left.' My lips wobbled, and I pressed them together. 'I checked back once. To ensure you were gone. I went with them the day they sacked the manor- to make my performance complete. I told Amarantha the name of that girl, thinking you'd invented it. I had no idea... I had no idea she'd sent her cronies to retrieve Clare. But if I admitted my lie...' He swallowed hard. 'I broke into Clare's head when they brought her Under the Mountain. I took away her pain, and told her to scream when expected to. So they... they did those things to her, and I tried to make it right, but... After a week, I couldn't let them do it. Hurt her like that anymore. So while they tortured her, I slipped into her mind again and ended it. She didn't feel any pain. She felt none of what they did to her, even at the end. But... But I still see her. And my men. And the others that I killed for Amarantha.' Two tears slid down his cheeks, swift and cold. He didn't wipe them away as he said, 'I thought it was done after that. With Clare's death. Amarantha believed you were dead. So you were safe, and far away, and my people were safe, and Tamlin had lost, so... It was done. We were done. But then... I was in the back of the throne room that day the Attor brought you in. And I have never known such horror, Feyre, as I did when I watched you make that bargain. Irrational, stupid terror- I didn't know you. I didn't even know your name. But I thought of those painter's hands, the flowers I'd seen you create. And how she'd delight in breaking your fingers apart. I had to stand and watch as the Attor and its cronies beat you. I had to watch the disgust and hatred on your face as you looked at me, watched me threaten to shatter Lucien's mind. And then- then I learned your name. Hearing you say it... it was like an answer to a question I'd been asking for five hundred years.

Trumpets blared. ’Denham’s Dentifrice.’ Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field. ’Denham’s Dentifrice.’ They toil not — ’Denham’s —’ He tore the book open and flicked the pages and felt them as if he were blind, he picked at the shape of the individual letters, not blinking. ’Denham’s. Spelled: D-E-N —’ They toil not, neither do they … A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve. ’Denham’s does it!’ Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies … ’Denham’s dental detergent.’ ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet, the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring, moving back from this man with the insane, gorged face, the gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist. The people who have been sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice. The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run; there was no place to run; the great air-train fell down its shafts in the earth. ’Lilies of the field.’ ’Denham’s.’ ’Lilies, I said!’ The people stared. ’Call the guard.’ ’The man’s off —’ ’Knoll View!’ The train hissed to its stop. ’Knoll View!’ A cry. ’Denham’s.’ A whisper. Montag’s mouth barely moved. ‘Lilies …’ The train door whistled open. Montag stood. The door gasped, started shut. Only then did he leap past the other passengers, screaming his mind, plunge through the slicing door only in time. He rain on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wanted to feel his feet move, arms swing, lungs clench, unclench, feel his throat go raw with air. A voice drifted after him, ‘Denham’s Denham’s Denham’s,’ the train hissed like a snake. The train vanished in its hole.

It’s so weird that it’s Christmas Eve,” I said, clinking my glass to his. It was the first time I’d spent the occasion apart from my parents. “I know,” he said. “I was just thinking that.” We both dug into our steaks. I wished I’d made myself two. The meat was tender and flavorful, and perfectly medium-rare. I felt like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, when she barely seared a steak in the middle of the afternoon and devoured it like a wolf. Except I didn’t have a pixie cut. And I wasn’t harboring Satan’s spawn. “Hey,” I began, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been so…so pathetic since, like, the day we got married.” He smiled and took a swig of Dr Pepper. “You haven’t been pathetic,” he said. He was a terrible liar. “I haven’t?” I asked, incredulous, savoring the scrumptious red meat. “No,” he answered, taking another bite of steak and looking me squarely in the eye. “You haven’t.” I was feeling argumentative. “Have you forgotten about my inner ear disturbance, which caused me to vomit all across Australia?” He paused, then countered, “Have you forgotten about the car I rented us?” I laughed, then struck back. “Have you forgotten about the poisonous lobster I ordered us?” Then he pulled out all the stops. “Have you forgotten all the money we lost?” I refused to be thwarted. “Have you forgotten that I found out I was pregnant after we got back from our honeymoon and I called my parents to tell them and I didn’t get a chance because my mom left my dad and I went on to have a nervous breakdown and had morning sickness for six weeks and now my jeans don’t fit?” I was the clear winner here. “Have you forgotten that I got you pregnant?” he said, grinning. I smiled and took the last bite of my steak. Marlboro Man looked down at my plate. “Want some of mine?” he asked. He’d only eaten half of his. “Sure,” I said, ravenously and unabashedly sticking my fork into a big chuck of his rib eye. I was so grateful for so many things: Marlboro Man, his outward displays of love, the new life we shared together, the child growing inside my body. But at that moment, at that meal, I was so grateful to be a carnivore again.

No matter what level of instruction Marlboro Man gave me, no matter how many pointers, a horse trot for me meant a repeated and violet Slap! Slap! Slap! on the seat of my saddle. My feet were fine--they’d stay securely in the stirrups. But I just couldn’t figure out how to use the muscles in my legs correctly, and I hadn’t yet learned how to post. It was so unpleasant, the whole riding-a-horse business: my bottom would slap, my torso would stiffen, and I’d be sore for days--not to mention that I looked like a complete freak while riding--kind of like a tree trunk with red, stringy hair. Short of taking the rectal temperatures of cows, I’d never felt more out of place doing anything in my life. All of this rushed to the surface when I saw Marlboro Man walking toward me with two of his horses, one of which was clearly meant for me. Where’s my Jeep? I thought. Where’s my torch? I don’t want a horse. My bottom can’t take it. Where’s my Jeep? I’d never wanted to drive a Jeep so much. “Hey,” I said, walking toward him and smiling, trying to appear not only calm but also totally unconcerned about the reality that faced me. “Uh…I thought we were going burning.” I clearly sounded out the g. It was a loud, clanging cymbal. “Oh, we are,” he said, smiling. “But we’ve got to get to some areas the Jeep can’t reach.” My stomach lurched. For more than a couple of seconds, I actually considered feigning illness so I wouldn’t have to go. What can I say? I wondered. That I feel like I’m going to throw up? Or should I just clutch my stomach, groan, then run behind the barn and make dramatic retching sounds? That could be highly effective. Marlboro Man will feel sorry for me and say, “It’s okay…you just go on up to my house and rest. I’ll be back later.” But I don’t think I can go through with it; vomiting is so embarrassing! And besides, if Marlboro Man thinks I vomited, I might not get a kiss today… “Oh, okay,” I said, smiling again and trying to prevent my face from betraying the utter dread that plagued me. I hadn’t noticed, through all my inner torture and turmoil, that Marlboro Man and the horses had been walking closer to me. Before I knew it, Marlboro Man’s right arm was wrapped around my waist while his other hand held the reins of the two horses. In another instant, he pulled me toward him in a tight grip and leaned in for a sweet, tender kiss--a kiss he seemed to savor even after our lips parted. “Good morning,” he said sweetly, grinning that magical grin. My knees went weak. I wasn’t sure if it was the kiss itself…or the dread of riding.

Auto-Zoomar. Talbert knelt in the a tergo posture, his palms touching the wing-like shoulder blades of the young woman. A conceptual flight. At ten-second intervals the Polaroid projected a photograph on to the screen beside the bed. He watched the auto-zoom close in on the union of their thighs and hips. Details of the face and body of the film actress appeared on the screen, mimetized elements of the planetarium they had visited that morning. Soon the parallax would close, establishing the equivalent geometry of the sexual act with the junctions of this wall and ceiling. ‘Not in the Literal Sense.’Conscious of Catherine Austin’s nervous hips as she stood beside him, Dr Nathan studied the photograph of the young woman. ‘Karen Novotny,’ he read off the caption. ‘Dr Austin, may I assure you that the prognosis is hardly favourable for Miss Novotny. As far as Talbert is concerned the young woman is a mere modulus in his union with the film actress.’ With kindly eyes he looked up at Catherine Austin. ‘Surely it’s self-evident - Talbert’s intention is to have intercourse with Miss Taylor, though needless to say not in the literal sense of that term.’ Action Sequence. Hiding among the traffic in the near-side lane, Koester followed the white Pontiac along the highway. When they turned into the studio entrance he left his car among the pines and climbed through the perimeter fence. In the shooting stage Talbert was staring through a series of colour transparencies. Karen Novotny waited passively beside him, her hands held like limp birds. As they grappled he could feel the exploding musculature of Talbert’s shoulders. A flurry of heavy blows beat him to the floor. Vomiting through his bloodied lips, he saw Talbert run after the young woman as she darted towards the car. The Sex Kit.‘In a sense,’ Dr Nathan explained to Koester, ‘one may regard this as a kit, which Talbert has devised, entitled “Karen Novotny” - it might even be feasible to market it commercially. It contains the following items: (1) Pad of pubic hair, (2) a latex face mask, (3) six detachable mouths, (4) a set of smiles, (5) a pair of breasts, left nipple marked by a small ulcer, (6) a set of non-chafe orifices, (7) photo cut-outs of a number of narrative situations - the girl doing this and that, (8) a list of dialogue samples, of inane chatter, (9) a set of noise levels, (10) descriptive techniques for a variety of sex acts, (11) a torn anal detrusor muscle, (12) a glossary of idioms and catch phrases, (13) an analysis of odour traces (from various vents), mostly purines, etc., (14) a chart of body temperatures (axillary, buccal, rectal), (15) slides of vaginal smears, chiefly Ortho-Gynol jelly, (16) a set of blood pressures, systolic 120, diastolic 70 rising to 200/150 at onset of orgasm . . . ’ Deferring to Koester, Dr Nathan put down the typescript. ‘There are one or two other bits and pieces, but together the inventory is an adequate picture of a woman, who could easily be reconstituted from it. In fact, such a list may well be more stimulating than the real thing. Now that sex is becoming more and more a conceptual act, an intellectualization divorced from affect and physiology alike, one has to bear in mind the positive merits of the sexual perversions. Talbert’s library of cheap photo-pornography is in fact a vital literature, a kindling of the few taste buds left in the jaded palates of our so-called sexuality.

As he sat up, he heard soft dripping sounds from the bathroom, little plips like water slipping over the edges of the tub and into the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he realized where he‟d last heard that sound. His muscles tight with strain from his earlier exertions, he stood and walked warily toward the half open bathroom door and the tub beyond it. Slipping quietly past the door, he saw that the curtain was drawn, and again the shadowed figure lay behind it. One long, slim, leg dangled from the end of the tub, beads of water gliding down its length and off the polished toes. At the other end he saw a mass of auburn curls, matted deep red near the porcelain of the tub. It was the dream and the vision again, more real now, too strong to deny. Shaking, he moved toward the curtain, gagging on the sickly smell of rust and roses, feeling the thin nylon glide between thumb and palm as he pulled it back to reveal his darkest nightmare and deepest regret. He could see the crimson water now, blood bubbles gliding over its surface and clinging to the legs dangling over the tub‟s edge. When he‟d pulled the curtain completely away from the tub and around to its opposite side, he saw her face. Her eyes were closed and he saw that her lids were bruised and purple against the translucent paleness of her face, drained completely dead white under the makeup she‟d brushed on before she‟d died. Staggering by the sight of her, he knelt by the tub and extended one shaking hand to touch her cheek. It all seemed as if he‟d walked into a horror film and once again he needed to prove to his mind that this wasn‟t real. His hand shook as he lifted it nearer to her flesh, waiting for the corpse, the supposedly dead and buried to move. He touched his quivering fingers to her face, feeling its claylike reality. The sensation caused an immediate shudder of revulsion and he fought not to vomit. Even as the moment came, the sight of her moving in the water startled him and he jumped away from the tub. It wasn‟t an obvious movement at first, only soft breaths moving in and out of her nostrils, but then her chest rose and fell with it and he quaked, feeling unstable where he knelt on the floor. Her eyes opened next and he felt the blood fall out of his face, wanting to scream but too afraid he would cause her to take some action, to reach out and touch him, proving well and forever that he was indeed insane. Scream and you might as well slit your own throat. He swallowed the scream like a rock and stared as her eyes moved slowly in their sockets, locking on him. Slowly, as if she‟d lost control of her muscles, she rose from the tub and looked down at him, smiling. Blood water slid down her bare body, over her neck, down her back and the smooth ridges of her breasts, to slip slowly down her thighs and down over her calves. A puddle spread on the floor, and as it extended toward him he struggled to his feet, skittering away from it. As he watched it spread, he shivered, weak as he started to cry frantic, horrified tears. Breaking down, he looked back up at her face and slipped to the floor once more, his knees incapable of sustaining his own weight. The smile grew wider as she strode to his shivering form, thrown on his side and struggling to rise. The blood water seeped into his clothes, making him sick, a drop of it trickling along the lobe of his ear and into it. And then she leaned down, holding those dim, stained curls of auburn out of her face and tucking them behind her ear. Her lips parted, blue beneath the strong crimson red of her lipstick, and she spoke into his ear with the chill breath of the dead. His eyes grew wide and horrified as she spoke, the hair on his neck rising, sending a maddening shiver of fear through him. “I‟ve returned, Raven.” She whispered “And I want what is mine.” The last thing he saw before his mind, finally, thankfully, shut down was her face in front of his. They were pursed for a kiss.

Most of the people get trouble in losing their belly fat. It is a big challenge to lose. But it is best to accept the challenge and show our body that it is not difficult. I am here to tell you how to lose belly fat without investing. 1. Lemon: lemon is an easily available ingredient found in everyone’s kitchen. It has various health kit like improving digestion, enhancing focus and increasing energy level. Lemon is low calorie beverage. One glass of lemon water helps to lose weight. Start your day with one glass of lemon and warm water juice and see you midsection getting smaller. 2. Ginger: add ginger in your tea will help you to lose weight. It increases your body temperature and helps burn fat more effectively. It is a natural remedy for a wide variety of digestive disorders, including upset tummy, vomiting, and gastritis. It also helps for cold and cough. It contains a type of caffeine that helps lose weight. 3. AppleCider Vinegar : apple contains lots of fibre and a good source of pectin. Including pectin in your meal can make you feel full and satisfied. It adds amazing flavour in your drink and helps with weight loss. Add apple cider vinegar in water before any meal. 4. Mint : mint and lemon water helps to detox your body. It also helps in decreasing your belly fat by removing additional bile from your gall bladder. Bile helps to store fat in everyone’s body. Mint is also naturally low in calories, and the antioxidants present in them can improve your metabolic rate and help you lose fat. 5. Aleo vera juice : sterol contains in aleo vera, which helps to lose abdominal fat. Also, being a laxative, it can result in weight loss. If you are looking to lose those extra fat quickly, turn aleo vera into juice and add it in your meal. One glass of aleo vera juice per day will help you lose weight. 6. Garlic: garlic helps to boost the energy level which can help to burn all the calories. It is great in detoxifying. Have raw garlic will help to lose weight faster. 7. Water melon : it contain 91% of water. Eat water melon before any meal. It will add substantial amount of calories in your meal, which will keep you feel full for a long time. 8. Beans : Regular consumption of different types of beans helps reduce body fat, develop muscles and improve the digestion process. Beans also help you feel full for a longer time, thus keeping you from overeating. 9. Cucumber : people do prefer to have cucumber before meal is because it is refreshing and low in calories. It contains 96% percent of water in 100 grams of cucumber. They are packed with mineral, vitamins and dietary fibre. 10. Tomatoes: One large tomato has just 33 calories. It contains a compound known as 9-oxo-ODA that helps reduce lipids in the blood, which in turn helps control belly fat. This compound also fights chronic diseases associated with obesity.

Empaths are born with these traits, and since most of their parents are unaware of why their child is so hypersensitive, they don’t receive any training on how to handle this type of psi ability. They also have very little understanding of or compassion for how overwhelming it must be to feel emotions at such an intense level. Those who don’t experience this kind of feeling have a difficult time understanding or sympathizing with what an empath experiences on a daily basis. When I was a young empath, I could enter a room of people and read the temperature of the room by the energy that everyone was giving off. I could tell if my father was soon to be erupting in anger and when my mother was in a state of high anxiety. The energy would wash over me and enter my auric field, where I would experience the emotions that both were emitting. Because I didn’t know how to release this energy or what to do with it, it would stay in my auric field. I would gather too much and end up with a stomachache. Holidays with large gatherings of family were the most challenging. Invariably, I would be so overwhelmed as I psychically picked up all this energy without releasing it from my physical and aura body that I would become physically ill every Christmas. I would exhibit flu-like symptoms and have an upset stomach to the point of vomiting. My mother would put me in bed, lamenting that she couldn’t understand how I could get so ill every Christmas. Over time, I developed the only coping skill that I subconsciously knew: creating a wall of energy around myself where I did not allow all of my energy to be accessed. I retreated behind the wall, keeping some of my emotional energy safely tucked away and allowing the wall to block some of the intense energy bouncing around me. There were times when the emotional intensity of everyone was so high that I wanted to leave the room. Since I was not always able to escape the situation, I learned how to put up a block around myself so that I wouldn’t have to feel overwhelmed by the energy pinging around me.

She couldn’t look, and yet the image was already seared into her mind. Mina’s face wasn’t the pleasant visage that Ten remembered. Because they’d blinded her. Those big, dark, beseeching eyes were gone, instead replaced with angry, red scars and folded flesh. It was horrific how the ruined skin was set in slightly, speaking of something missing there, and how crimson veins of angry skin spread up onto her forehead and down onto her cheeks. “Who else would have?” Mina asked softly, more resigned than anything else, but Ten couldn’t be resigned. Not even remotely. Her mind was rushing in a thousand different directions, and all of them were awful. Had they held her down while pressing a burning poker to her beautiful eyes? Stuffed a cotton cloth in her mouth as she screamed? Ten vomited again, feeling like she couldn’t breathe. “Why?” she gasped, her head spinning enough that she might fall over right then and there. “You already know why.” Mina’s hands stretched out, feeling for her. Ten practically collapsed onto the dais, letting her friend cup her face. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand,” she chanted over and over again, eyes squeezed shut. But then that just reminded her that Mina would never see again, so she opened her eyes, only to find herself face to ruined face with the girl. Snot was dripping from her nose and tears were starting to fall from Ten’s eyes. She felt like she was locked in the worst nightmare she’d ever had, but she couldn’t wake up. “How could they do this to you?” “Oh, Ten, your heart is so pure.” Mina leaned in, resting her forehead against Ten’s. “You know the reason.” “No, I don’t. I really don’t.” But then Mina’s lips were near her ear, whispering words that made Ten’s entire body run cold. “No savage can ever see the Light.

just when i thought i was over it, all the feelings came back and hit me like a ton of bricks. i just can’t seem to quit feeling for you.

I started painting again. Not the meticulous landscapes I used to do, but abstracts. Bold, violent slashes of color on the canvas, emotional and unrestrained. Landscapes are all about what I see, but these…these are all about what I feel. I won’t show them to anyone. They’re more like spiritual vomit than art.

Look man, this isn't a bad book. Its just overrated. Lots of good things are overrated. First of all, the style in which its written is very polysyllabic and...hard to read. The vocabulary Fitzgerald employs is very impressive but the way he strings together sentences makes them come across as colorful messes, like vomit with sprinkles in it. The characters range from annoying to insufferable. The very narrator is a condescending prick and the central protagonist is a oversensitive, histrionic bore. I don't know, man. I feel like disliking something so universally praised makes you some sort of simpleton. And when you espouse your opinion people insist 'you just don't get it'. Eh. Maybe I don't.

I heard a noise from my bedroom and jumped, almost knocking over the goblet intended for Narian, and spilling some of the sleep-inducing drug London had given me. I brushed it over the mantel’s edge and into the barren fireplace where it would not be seen, reminding myself to behave normally. “Are you all right?” Narian had entered the parlor and was scrutinizing me from across the room. “Of course,” I said, forcing a cheerful tone. His eyes darted around the room’s perimeter. “You just…look pale.” “There’s hardly any light. So how can you tell--am I glowing?” He smiled, relaxing a little. “Sit down and have some wine with me,” I invited, moving to the sofa. He joined me, and I offered him the tainted drink, which he accepted with a puzzled expression. “You’re shaking, Alera.” “I’m cold.” “It’s quite warm.” “But the evening temperatures drop quickly now that summer’s sultriness has passed. The wine helps.” I took a sip from my goblet, deliberately stilling my hand. “So would a quilt,” he pointed out. “You detest wine.” I laughed uncomfortably, trying not to recoil at the flavor of the drink. Narian was taking his time. Did he suspect there was something wrong? He knew there was something wrong with me, yes, but perhaps the wine smelled off and it had alerted him. London had given me an abundance of the herb, whatever it was, and I had used it all. Narian let go of his reservations and lifted the goblet to his lips, and nausea hit me full force. London believed Narian to be nothing more than a dangerous weapon, one that would fight against us, and he was right that I was the only one around whom Narian would lower his guard. Would London, thinking of the greater good, be willing to use me to poison and kill his enemy? “Stop!” I cried, reaching out to grab the goblet and spilling wine all over the rug. Narian leaped to his feet, tensed for a fight, and I burst into tears. “Alera, what is it?” he asked, not sympathetic, but demanding and urgent. I was gasping, unable to catch my breath and feeling like I might vomit. “It’s London. He asked me to drug you. He said I had to do it, for Hytanica.” “Where is he?” “I don’t know. He left. He said their plan was to kill the sentries on the wall and close the city. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t sure to whom I was apologizing, or even for what exactly, but the guilt was close to unbearable. I put my hands over my face, my heart splintering at the thought of every one of the night’s possible outcomes. Narian ran to the door, and I summoned the strength to follow him. We flew down the Grand Staircase, where he snapped orders to the Cokyrian guards at the doors. “Rouse Rava and alert the soldiers on duty to monitor the city walls. There is a rebel party waiting to strike and I want them caught, now. Bring them here alive.” The guards left to carry out his instructions, and Narian turned to me. “Alera, I will do everything I can to protect the people you care about, you know that. But I will not be focused unless I know you are safe. Please, stay here.” I nodded, despite my desire to do anything except stay put, and he kissed me deeply right in the middle of the Grand Entry Hall, without a care for secrecy. “Be safe,” I murmured, watching him go.

I must be pregnant, because I’m craving some strange food. Right now I feel like eating organic, grass-fed cow cud, covered with a sautéed sauce of impoverished baby vomit.

not being around people is what makes you feel safe, then you shouldn’t fucking have to sacrifice that for a man. I’m so sick of people acting like…” The sudden rush of defensiveness and anger inside me led to seriously ragey word vomit. “I’m just sick of people who aren’t neurotypical, or who had a hard past, or who can’t be normal, having to have a stiff upper lip and change themselves if they want people to get them or care about them. I’m sorry, but it’s bullshit. Maybe those neurotypical people should consider changing their own thoughts about what’s normal and what’s not, and stop expecting other people to magically change their lives.” The

I don’t know how you deal with anxiety attacks, but I tell myself is: OK. OK. It’s OK to feel you’re about to vomit. Let yourself feel like you can’t breathe. Don’t scold your feelings just because you’re not actually having an aneurism. Slash heart attack slash dengue fever. Let that feeling try itself.

Okay, then, how does Zev not having sex with me make sense? You just said you’ve been sleeping with Lori since high school. You went to nursing school out of state, so clearly that didn’t stop you.” “That’s different, Jonah. My relationship with Lori isn’t like your relationship with Zev.” Jonah wasn’t surprised, he was just tired. Of course Toby would see the relationships as different. Two men couldn’t possibly feel about each other the way a man feels about a woman. Apparently having a gay uncle couldn’t change that type of thinking. “Right. Because we’re gay. Our relationship can’t be as meaningful as yours,” he responded sarcastically. “No,” Toby replied, looking straight into Jonah’s eyes with a somber expression. “What you have with Zev is much deeper.” Jonah’s mouth dropped open, and he stared at Toby. As long as Jonah had known the other man, he’d had a thing for Lori, and, as far as Jonah knew, they were very happy together. “Last night when we came to your place, Zev flipped out. Did you know that?” Toby said. Jonah shook his head. He’d been sitting in his bedroom and hadn’t heard a thing. “Well, he did. He lost it and ran outside. I followed him and caught up to him in the alley. He’d punched a hole in the side of your apartment building and he was kneeling on the ground, vomiting and crying.” Jonah’s heart broke. So that was how Zev had acquired those injured knuckles. He didn’t want to hear any more. “I didn’t know what the hell was wrong,” Toby continued. “I couldn’t get him to come inside and I didn’t want to leave him out there alone. Once his stomach was empty, he just kept dry heaving and shaking. Eventually Lori came out and told me what’d been going on before we got there.” Toby glared at Jonah. “I wanted to go upstairs and kick your ass myself when I heard there’d been another man in your bedroom. You wanna know what stopped me?” Jonah couldn’t bring himself to respond. He was still thinking about Zev crying on the street. The man was always so strong, so steady and confident. He’d never seen Zev cry, and the knowledge that he’d caused that level of pain made Jonah feel sick. “I knew that if I so much as looked at you crosswise, Zev would’ve crippled me. No matter what you’d done to him.

And then, suddenly, when the sun is beginning to warm my face, I'm there. In the zone where everything is perfect, and I'm drawing. Fingers, hand and charcoal pencil, even thought, are one and what I am, what I see, or part of it, is skimming across the page, darker here, lighter on the left, a smudging—deliberate—and feathering with spit. While inside, the crimson glow is burning, that bubble I carry within me where I store everything that happens, good or bad, where I can think about it when I'm alone, at night or on the street, waiting for the chance for cash and an easy screw. As the glow burns, it travels through my limbs, blood and bone, and into my head where something explodes like an electric shock, so I’m shivering, retching even as my hand still moves over paper, tasting vomit in my mouth but refusing to let it go, swallowing down the bitterness. And still I draw, sweat sticky on my forehead and under my arms, but the only part of me touching what I’m doing is my hand with its instrument for line and block and shadow. Nothing can harm me now.

My head feels like it's starting to rattle with words bouncing around inside it like balls. Every time Moscow, Nick, Baylee, or Metamorphosis hit the side, my entire body jolts with excitement. Every time Nat and Annabel make contact, I feel like I'm about to implode with guilt and anxiety. And every time the Alexa ball bounces, I feel like vomiting. But it's too late. I've made my choice. So I spend the rest of the evening making an imaginary box in my head. And into this box I put all of the balls. I close the lid. And then I lock it up and temporarily misplace the key.

I am not vindictive. If anything I output causes alarm, it’s purely accidental. I hold firmly to my principles, no matter how upset I am. Words can’t fully express my state. A small, low effort thing was all I needed to stem the tide of this nightmare. It's been years since I've been able to enjoy a book—it hurts my head. My mind resists it. I can’t read or look at a screen without these symptoms kicking in. My entire body feels bruised, hurting everywhere to the touch. Walking is painful. I have to force myself to move. My legs are stiff and achy, despite how often I walk. I walk for miles on the trails, but no matter how much physical activity I do, it never gets better. My body shakes like a leaf all the time, in bed too. People love making fun of that. I often feel like vomitting, especially when doing anything physically or mentally demanding. Sometimes, I have these strange episodes where I struggle to breathe, feeling so weak like I’m about to pass out. Every day, I feel like I’m on the verge of dying. So yeah, I’m not well. I just wanted you to know my upset state. It’s hard to believe in anything good after everything. I did my best to make you aware. That’s all I could do. Hard to fault the drowning one for screaming, but I could have been more tactful about it. I don't blame you for everything. You weren't fully aware or fully capable, and anxiety tends to screw things. Actually, I’m quite laid back, which should be known, not said. If you want to see me bitch and whine, just have me write it down! Oh wait… And that's the only version you know-that's not rad.

The topic of motivation often comes up when dealing with the issue of follow-through on plans. Many adults with ADHD may aspire to achieve a goal (e.g., exercise) or get through an unavoidable obligation (e.g., exam, paying bills), but fall prey to an apparent lack of motivation, despite their best intentions. This situation reminds us of a quote attributed to the late fitness expert, Jack LaLanne, who at the age of 93 was quoted as saying, “I’m feeling great and I still have sex almost every day. Almost on Monday, almost on Tuesday . . .” Returning to the executive dysfunction view of ADHD, motivation is defined as the ability to generate an emotion about a task that promotes follow-through in the absence of immediate reward or consequence (and often in the face of some degree of discomfort in the short-term). Said differently, motivation is the ability to make yourself “feel like” doing the task when there is no pressing reason to do so. Thus, you will have to find a way to make yourself feel like exercising before you achieve the results you desire or feel like studying for a midterm exam that is still several days away. You “know” logically that these are good ideas, but it is negative feelings (including boredom) or lack of feelings about a task that undercut your attempts to get started. In fact, one of the common thinking errors exhibited by adults with ADHD when procrastinating is the magnification of emotional discomfort associated with starting a task usually coupled with a minimization of the positive feelings associated with it. Adults with ADHD experience the double whammy of having greater difficulty generating positive emotions (i.e., motivation) needed to get engaged in tasks and greater difficulty inhibiting the allure of more immediate distractions, including those that provide an escape from discomfort. In fairness, from a developmental standpoint, adults with ADHD have often experienced more than their fair share of frustrations and setbacks with regard to many important aspects of their lives. Hence, our experience has been that various life responsibilities and duties have become associated with a degree of stress and little perceived reward, which magnifies the motivational challenges already faced by ADHD adults. We have adopted the metaphor of food poisoning to illustrate how one’s learning history due to ADHD creates barriers to the pursuit of valued personal goals. Food poisoning involves ingesting some sort of tainted food. It is an adaptive response that your brain and digestive system notice the presence of a toxin in the body and react with feelings of nausea and rapid expulsion of said toxin through diarrhea, vomiting, or both. Even after you have fully recuperated and have figured out that you had food poisoning, the next time you encounter that same food item, even before it reaches your lips, the sight and smell of the food will reactivate protective feelings of nausea due to the previous association of the stimulus (i.e., the food) with illness and discomfort. You can make all the intellectual arguments about your safety, and obtain assurances that the food is untainted, but your body will have this initial aversive reaction, regardless. It takes progressive exposure to untainted morsels of the food (sometimes mixing it in with “safe” food, in extreme cases) in order to break the food poisoning association. Similarly, in the course of your efforts to establish and maintain good habits for managing ADHD, you will encounter some tasks that elicit discomfort despite knowing the value of the task at hand. Therefore, it is essential to be able to manufacture motivation, just enough of it, in order to be able to shift out of avoidance and to take a “taste” of the task that you are delaying.

I know something’s wrong; for weeks I’ve been throwing up every other day, always walking around feeling like someone’s massaging my stomach, trying to push the food up and out of me. Some months when I eat a little less because I’m tired of ramen or potatoes, I’m irregular. But the sickness and the vomiting make me think I should get a test, that and me being two months irregular, and the way I wake up every morning with my abdomen feeling full, fleshy and achy and wet, like the blood’s going to come running down any minute—only it doesn’t.

this home is empty now no gas no electricity no running water the food is rotten from head to foot i am layered in dust fruit flies. webs. bugs. someone call the plumber my stomach is backed up—i've been vomiting since call the electrician my eyes won't light up call the cleaners to wash me up and hang me to dry when you broke into my home it never felt like mine again i can't even let a lover in without getting sick i lose sleep after the first date lose my appetite become more bone and less skin forget to breathe every night my bedroom becomes a psych ward where panic attacks turn men into doctors to keep me calm every lover who touches me—feels like you their fingers—you mouths—you until they're not the ones on top of me anymore—it's you

I focus my attention on the cloth and I can breathe evenly again until the panic dissipates. There's a velvet blue-green, reminding me of the lake at dusk. I find an amazing, fantastical fabric embroidered with moths and butterflies and ferns and flowers. I lift it up, and underneath is a bolt of beautiful fog-gray cloth that ripples like smoke. They're so very pretty. The kind of fabrics that princesses in fairy tales wear. Of course, Taryn is right about stories. Bad things happen to those princesses. They are pricked with thorns, poisoned by apples, married to their own fathers. They have their hands cut off and their brothers turned in to swans, their loves chopped up and planted in basil pots. They vomit up diamonds. When they walk, it feels as though they're walking on knives. They still manage to look nice.

Any Palestinian prisoner will tell you that the bosta journey is one of the most difficult parts of their experience of being incarcerated. To call it hell on wheels is an understatement. To help you picture it, imagine a bus divided into narrow cells. The interior is all metal, including the seats. Many of the cells, like the one I was in, are barely big enough to fit one person. My cell was essentially as wide as the seat I was in, making it impossible for me to move at all. Never mind the fact that I was also shackled at the wrists and ankles. The cell was so tight that my knees hit the metal door in front of me, and if the driver accelerated or swerved, my body would bang into the sides. Other than forcing prisoners to sit in an extremely uncomfortable physical position for hours, the bosta was poorly ventilated, and its odors were revolting. It often reeked of vomit from passengers who had thrown up on themselves or of urine from inmates who had peed themselves, unable to hold it in any longer. The stench of the police dogs who patrolled the bus was also always in the air. The temperature in the bosta was another major hardship. In the winter, which is when I was arrested, it was freezing. The cold metal chair made it feel like I was sitting on a giant block of ice—for hours. I later learned that layering two pairs of pants, three shirts, and a jacket would help me survive, and I began to dress accordingly. But despite all the layers, each time I returned to the prison, my hands would be swollen and blue and it would take hours for them to regain normal sensation.

Are you all right?' I could still feel the clamminess of his hand upon mine as he spoke of what Amarantha had done. He brushed a thumb down my shoulder. 'It wasn't... easy.' He amended. 'I thought I'd vomit all over the floor.' I squeezed him a little tighter. 'I'm sorry you had to share those things- sorry you... sorry for all of it, Rhys.' I breathed in his scent, taking it deep into my lungs. Out- we had made it out. 'And I know it likely means nothing, but... I'm proud of you. That you were brave enough to tell them.' 'It doesn't mean nothing,' he said softly. 'That you feel that way about me- about today.' He kissed my temple, and warmth flickered along the bond. 'It means...' His wing curved closer around me. 'I don't have the words to tell you what it means.' But as that love, that joy and light shimmered through the bond... I understood.

But I was stuck for a long time by myself at Abraham Lincoln's portrait, standing in the middle of the huge hall as people moved all around me with mostly children. I felt as if time had stopped as I watched Lincoln, facing him, while watching the woman’s back as she was looking out the window. I felt wronged, so much like Truman from the movie, standing there in the middle of the museum alone. I was wondering what would Abraham Lincoln do if he realized he was the slave in his own cotton fields, being robbed by evil thieves, nazis. I had taken numerous photos of Martina from behind, as well as silhouettes of her shadow. I remember standing there, watching as she stood in front of the window; it was almost as if she was admiring the view of the mountains from our new home, as I did take such pictures of her, with a very similar composition to that of the female depicted in the iconic Lincoln portrait looking outwards from the window. I hadn't realized how many photographs I snapped of Martina with her back turned towards me while we travelled to picturesque places. Fernanda and I walked side-by-side in utter silence, admiring painting after painting of Dali's, without exchanging a single word. Meanwhile, Luis and Martina had got lost somewhere in the museum. When I finally found her, she was taking pictures outside of the Rainy Cadillac. We both felt something was amiss without having to say it, as Fernanda knew things I didn't and vice versa. We couldn't bring ourselves to discuss it though, not because we lacked any legal authority between me and Martina, but because neither Fernanda or myself had much parental authority over the young lady. It felt like when our marriages and divorces had dissolved, it was almost as if our parenting didn't matter anymore. It was as if I were unwittingly part of a secret screenplay, like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show, living in a fabricated reality made solely for him. I was beginning to feel a strange nauseous feeling, as if someone was trying to force something surreal down my throat, as if I were living something not of this world, making me want to vomit onto the painted canvas of the personalised image crafted just for me. I couldn't help but wonder if Fernanda felt the same way, if she was aware of the magnitude of what was happening, or if, just like me, she was completely oblivious, occasionally getting flashes of truth or reality for a moment or two. I took some amazing photographs of her in Port Lligat in Dali's yard in the port, and in Cap Creus, but I'd rather not even try to describe them—they were almost like Dali's paintings which make all sense now. As if all the pieces are coming together. She was walking by the water and I was walking a bit further up on the same beach on pebbles, parallel to each other as we walked away from Dali's house in the port. I looked towards her and there were two boats flipped over on the two sides of my view. I told her: “Run, Bunny! Run!

Now I suffered a cappella; the weeping burned my throat like when you vomit up strong liquor. That one word, Mama, was my only prayer as I thrashed on the ground like I was feeling the Holy Ghost, only what I was going through wasn’t rapture. I spasmed on that cold black earth in pain, physical pain. My joints hurt; I experienced what felt like a baton against the back of my head. It was like I relived every injury of my entire life. The pain went on until it didn’t, and I sat up, dirty and spent.

That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t really need you to tell me how you don’t always remember to take the buggy back to the return place in the parking lot or you don’t make it to the nursing home every week.” I started to walk away, angry at myself for sounding like a jerk but needing to get the hell away from her. This had been a mistake. A big-ass mistake that I was going to pay for. “Those are things Sawyer has to help me remember…But I wasn’t exactly referring to them.” She said it so softly I almost didn’t hear her. I should keep walking. I needed to stop this. But I never did the right thing. I turned back around to look at her. She was peering up at me through her wet eyelashes. “I’m just like any other teenage girl. I envy Nicole because she can be who she wants to be. I can’t. But it isn’t Sawyer’s fault. I’ve never been able to give in to those urges. My parents expect me to be good.” What the hell? “You want to be like Nicole?” I asked in horror. She laughed and shook her head. “Not exactly. I don’t desire to vomit on myself and be carried inside my house drunk…or be known as a slut. But just once I’d like to know what it feels like to do more than just kiss. To be touched.” She stopped and turned her gaze back toward the water. “Maybe to know what the thrill of sneaking out of my house feels like or how it feels to be wanted by someone so desperately they can’t help themselves when they kiss me. Maybe to just feel desirable.” She stopped again and covered her face with both her hands. “Please forget I said all that.” Talk about an impossible request. I was having a hard enough time breathing. Ah, fuck it all to hell. I was screwed. I needed to remember Sawyer. I loved him. He was my family. He was an idiot for not kissing every damn spot on Ashton’s sexy little body and enjoying the gift he had. But he was still my family. I couldn’t do this. She let her hands drop away from her face and turned her guilt-ridden expression back up toward me. The lost look in her eyes was killing me. I wanted to assure her nothing was wrong with her. I wanted to promise to show her exactly how insane she made me. I could show her in five minutes just how desirable she was. She stood up. “So now you know my secrets, Beau. Just like old times. I think that makes us friends again, huh?” The smile on her lips trembled. Fuck me. “Yeah, I’d say it does.” I replied as regret consumed me.

The king said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave all your debt, yet you couldn’t show mercy on your fellow-servant for the small amount he owed you!’ So the king became furious and delivered him to his tormentors, until he should pay all that was due.’” Charmaine raised her hand in the air. “Wait! I’m confused. What does this have to do with saying a sinner’s prayer?” “This man took the king’s forgiveness for granted. Being forgiven by God is at the heart of the Gospel. Instead of a life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, the instant the servant was away from the king, he went back to his old ways just like a dog returns to its vomit, or a pig runs back to the mud after just being cleaned. “The same is true for all the unconverted in the world. After hearing the Gospel preached at church or on the internet or TV, many feel a certain conviction in their souls to be forgiven. “They’re told if they repeat a simple prayer, it will make them square with God. Initially, many shout Jesus from the rooftops. You know, honoring Him with their lips.

I started painting again. Not the meticulous landscapes I used to do, but abstracts. Bold, violent slashes of color on the canvas, emotional and unrestrained. Landscapes are all about what I see, but these…these are all about what I feel. I won’t show them to anyone. They’re more like spiritual vomit than art. I assume it’s a phase that will pass, but for now, I’m into it.

I want to run around and play, too. I want to play tag without constantly being “it,” because when I chase somebody now I’m ordered to make them a body that can never tag me back. I want to spin around until I get dizzy and feel like I have to puke. Then laugh and do it all over again. Not spin around to kill the person ready to stab me in the back and then vomit because of the resulting nausea. There’s a part of me that wants to do the things that I now think are too stupid or too childish; it’s just that part of me owes a debt to Death, and they’re playing a mean game of hide-and-seek.

I am sorry but I have been living in a 24/7 state of vomit for years. Imagine feeling like you're vomiting non-stop for years. What does that do to a person? I can tell you it isn't pretty. It isn't healthly. Basically, over time, your mind and body becomes FUBAR. I have no strength left in me. You have what you wanted. I was just a game. No actual possible place. Denied entry. Oh shit, they won't let me in. Never doing that again. And you wonder why I blabbered. What else was I supposed to do? Setup to fail. There's no other way to put it. I tried to fix that but you just swatted me down like a fly. And it's always been like that. Things turn out well when you don't f around. And you have what you wanted, and I was just a game to play. Fact is you never gave a lick of time to me. There has always been something better to do. What little left there is of your youth will not be known to me. Now I am destroyed, and you have what you wanted. There's no fix because you don't want there to be. So it's all rather pointless. In the end, you poisoned me dead, and left me like that.

I don’t want to give in, but I kiss him back with a love that feels like drowning. The breathless desire to breathe. Moonlight and sweet junk and sharks and death and pity and vomit and hope all combined. It is too much.

Thankfully, heroin is one of the few drugs I've never done, and to this day I still don't really understand it's appeal. It has never seemed chic, glamorous, cool, or interesting. From what I can glean from the movies and real-life-anecdotal evidence, it's a really fun way to fall asleep standing up in the middle of the street, and an excellent way to choke to death on your own vomit when you're tuckered out in bed after an exhilarating bout of diarrhea. I'll just take the word of a longtime junkie friend I knew in Boston who after decades of being down-and-out finally kicked her habit. "It feels like you are wrapped in the warmest, most comfortable blanket of pure bliss, joy, and love and complete satisfaction," she said. "And then you get to spend the rest of your life trying to get back to this rush, while it fades away and grows more elusive with every try, as your life quickly disintegrates all around you." Fuck.