Loose Skin Quotes

Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.

Ash brushed my cheek with the back of his hand, catching a loose strand of hair between his fingers. "I've seen thousands of mortal girls," he said softly, "more than you could ever count, from all corners of your world. To me, they're all the same." His finger slid below my chin, tilting my head up. "They only see this outer shell, not who I really am, beneath. You have. You've seen me without the glamour and illusions, even the ones I show my family, the farce I maintain just to survive. You've seen who I really am, and yet, you're still here." He brushed his thumb over my skin, leaving a trail of icy heat. "You're here, and the only dance I want is this one.

So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. the pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear. And then my fierceness can come back, my golden side, my black side. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter's tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and giver her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter.

No. Don't never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It'll come. Like the rain fallin' from the heaven, it'll come. Just don't never give up on love.

It hurts to look at the clouds, but it also helps, like most things that cause pain. So I need to run, and as my lungs burn and my back rebels with that stabbing knife feeling and my legs muscles harden and the half inch of loose skin around my waist jiggles, I feel as though my penance for the day is being done and that maybe God will be pleased enough to lend me some help, which I think is why He has been showing me interesting clouds for the past week.

I have aged. When I look in my polished bronze mirror, there are lines upon my face. I am thickened too and my skin has begun growing loose. I cut myself with my herbs and the scars stay. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I am vain and dissatisfied. But I do not wish myself back. Of course my flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.

The walls weren't moving, and the room was open - gaping. No colors, but shades of darkness, of night . Only those star-flecked violet eyes were bright, full of color and light. He gave me a lazy smile before he leaned forward. I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn't move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when his tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back. He chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at him. He smirked, sitting down against a wall. "I figured that would get you to stop crying." "It was disgusting." I wiped my face again. "Was it?" He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to his palm - to the place where my tattoo would be. "Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting." "Get out." "As usual, your gratitude is overwhelming.

Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.

There is... this rage." she said "This despair and hatred and rage that lives and breathes inside me. There's not sanity to it, no gentleness. It is a monster dwelling under my skin. For the past ten years, I have worked every day, every hour, to keep that monster locked up. And the moment I talk about those two days, and what happened before and after, that monster is going to break loose, and there will be no accounting for what I do." "That is how I was able to stand before the King of Adarlan, how I was able to befriend his son and his captain, how I was able to live in that palace. Because I did not give that rage, those memories, one inch. And right now I am looking for the tools that might destroy my enemy, and I cannot let out the monster, because it will make me use those tools against the king, not put them back as I should—and I might very well destroy the world for spite. So that is why I must be Celaena, not Aelin—because being Aelin means facing those things, unleashing that monster. Do you understand?

Born a foreigner I carry two halves with me Loose skin I pull on To go places and don't fit Like apple pie and mochi

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled. "The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

The solar wind carried the ejection straight to the Earth’s magnetic field, where it penetrated the upper atmosphere and cut through it like a scalpel through loose skin.

Your days still half-opened, crackle like the fires to come. Outside. The earth. Wind. Night. Unfold for you. Listen to their sounds. They have sung me seasons that never abandoned me.

The Screelings are loose and the Keeper may win. His assassins have come to rip off your skin. Golden eyes will see you if you try to run. The screelings will get you and laugh like it's fun. Walk away slow or they'll tear you apart, and laugh all day long as they rip out your heart. Golden eyes will see you if you try to stand still. The screelings will get you, for the Keeper they kill. Hack 'em up, chop 'em up, cut 'em to bits, or else they will get you while laughing in fits. If the screelings don't get you the Keeper will try, to reach out and touch you, your skin he will fry. Your mind he will flail, your soul he will take. You'll sleep with the dead, for life you'll forsake. You'll die with the Keeper till the end of time. He hates that you live, your life is the crime. The screelings might get you, it says so in text. If screelings don't get you the Keeper is next, lest he who's born true can fight for life's bond. And that one is marked; he's the pebble in the pond.

To be honest, I don't know what qualities you ever saw in him. I can tell why he chose you, but-" "Oh yeah?" Cara's spirits lifted as she sensed a compliment coming on. "Why do you think he chose me?" "It's obvious." He swept a hand to indicate her loose curls. "Your long, shiny hair, healthy skin, and bright eyes show that you're well-nourished." "Uh, thank you?" "I'm not finished." "Go on then." "You're clearly intelligent." Then he felt the need to add, "For a human." "Gee. That's so sweet." "But Eric was probably most attracted to your wait-to-hip ratio." For a split second, Aelyx resembled a human boy as he leaned back and peered at her caboose. "Hips of that width are likely to pass life offspring without complication." Cara nearly swallowed her own tongue. She didn't have big hips did she?

And when I have that feeling, that feeling like I need a handout, desperate, I want to pull my skin off and turn into dust.I want to throw myself back to the angels and tell them to start over,start over without me cause you put the screws in loose, you put the hinges in wrong.

The dress bunched up like loose skin round her neck. It wouldn't behave, wouldn't act as if it was really hers. Wearing it was like being in a three legged race with someone you didn't like.

I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter’s tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter.

but i am what i am. woman. alone amid all this noise.

Side note: What is that crotch pad for? Is it to protect the vagina from the impact of a big wave? Or maybe to have a stronger barrier between vagina and sand? I can imagine how uncomfortable a sandy vagina is. Almost as uncomfortable as when sand would get in my loose under-boob skin. See, women, I relate to you.

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Sounds buzz around me, and I'm sure the painted dragonflies have come loose from the frieze on our walls to flap their wings in my ears, making my skin prickle and crawl as tides of sickness wash me away.

It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Fleas plague you, she says. Swamp skitters can kill you, an a little thorn- so small you hardly notice- it can work it's way unner the skin an bit after bit, yyer hand's infected. Maybe you loose a couple fingers, maybe the whole hand. Maybe yer blood goes bad an you die. Tiny things can cause plenty of trouble.

On this Thursday, on this particular walk to school, there was an old frog croaking in the stream behind the hedge as we went by. 'Can you hear him, Danny?' 'Yes,' I said, 'That is a bullfrog calling to his wife. He does it by blowing out his dewlap and letting it go with a burp.' 'What is a dewlap?' I asked. 'It's the loose skin on his throat. He can blow it up just like a balloon.' 'What happens when his wife hears him?' 'She goes hopping over to him. She is very happy to have been invited. But I'll tell you something very funny about the old bullfrog. He often becomes so pleased with the sound of his own voice that his wife has to nudge him several times before he'll stop his burping and turn round to hug her.' That made me laugh. 'Dont laugh too loud,' he said, twinkling at me with his eyes. 'We men are not so very different from the bullfrog.

Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you," said the Skin Horse. " When you are real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp corners. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose and very shabby. But these don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. Once you are Real, you can't unreal. It last forever

Their skin hung loose over their bodies like suits they had inherited from larger ancestors, with the trousers ridiculously baggy.

Ezra Mason: Yeah. So all hell breaks loose, and Kady is yelling at me and I’m yelling back. All this stuff that’d been building up for the last year and boiling just under the skin. Like, I loved her. I love her. But she had this way of just…It was so stupid. The world is ending all around us and we’re screaming about college applications and commitment and ****. I mean, can you believe that? Interviewer: You’re seventeen, right? Ezra Mason: Almost eighteen. Interviewer: Then yes, I believe it. Ezra Mason: Cold, chum. Real cold.

Give in to it, angel." "Give in to what?" "The hunger," he said, his tongue slowly running across his bottom lip. "The need. Give in to the craving. Give in to me." "Never," she whispered, the word impulsively tumbling from her lips, no conviction in her feeble voice. "I know you feel it, deep inside of you, screaming out to be acknowledged, to be satiated," he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. "I can sense it, clawing underneath your skin, begging to be let loose, begging to be invited out to play.

What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

(once upon an afternoon i became still-life i carried a balloon and a long black knife.)

if i had known, if i had known you, i would have left my love at home. -Haiku

Ginger twitched his ears and the loose skin on his back and legs to let Jerry know he was here and he was happy. Then he lowered his head down on his paws again and he let out a deep sigh that sounded almost like a sob, there was in it so much relief and pain and pleasure and remembering.

For a moment, unseen by condemning human eyes, I gave into my fascination and let myself look at her. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the moonlight slanting through the latticed windows, her hair an inky curtain across her back and shoulders. She breathed calmly, her face unguarded in sleep, as it was when she was awake. A jet-black strand of hair came loose to fall into her eyes, and I was filled with and incomprehensible urge to brush it back.

Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Can I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was the man who rubbed my feet at night. He praised the food that I cooked. He cried honestly when I brought out trinkets I had saved for the right day, the day he gave me my daughter, a tiger girl. How could I not love this man? But it was a love of a ghost. Arms that encircled but did not touch. A bowl full of rice but without my appetite to eat it. No hunger. No fullness. Now Saint is a ghost. He and I can now love equally. He knows the things I have been hiding all these years. Now I must tell my daughter everything. That she is a daughter of a ghost. She has no chi . This is my greatest shame. How can I leave this world without leaving her my spirit? So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear. And then my fierceness can come back, my golden side, my black side. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter's tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is a way a mother loves her daughter. I hear my daughter speaking to her husband downstairs. They say words that mean nothing. They sit in a room with no life in it. I know a thing before it happens. She will hear the table and vase crashing on the floor. She will come upstairs and into my room. Her eyes will see nothing in the darkness, where I am waiting between the trees.

It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Lounging indolently in a black silk robe which was loosely tied at the front and which appeared to conceal nothing more than bare skin...she made a conscious effort not to stare at the bare legs with their sprinkling of dark hair...was he even wearing underwear? she thought

I stayed under the moon too long. I am silvered with lust. Dreams flick like minnows through my eyes. My voice is trees tossing in the wind. I loose myself like a flock of blackbirds storming into your face. My lightest touch leaves blue prints, bruises on your mind. Desire sandpapers your skin so thin I read the veins and arteries maps of routes I will travel till I lodge in your spine. The night is our fur. We curl inside it licking.

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

As an indifference cherished, or left to atrophy, becomes an emptiness, to this extent he had learned to become empty of Nicole, serving her against his will with negations and emotional neglect. One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick, but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.

Sophie was a walking truth serum. If she was touching bare skin, she could yank the truth out of you like a loose tooth. I’d spent several unpleasant hours in her company during the Council’s screening process for humans who planned to work with vampires. That’s when I learned that you don’t refer to Buffy, the Winchesters, or even the Frog Brothers from The Lost Boys in front of Council officials. They do not have a sense of humor about that sort of entertainment.

Girl don’t you know yet that you don’t never give up on love? Don’t you know you has in you the pulse of winds? The noise of dragonflies?

Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be.

i gather up each sound you left behind and stretch them on our bed. each nite i breathe you and become high.

I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny.

I realized after I got Jesus, I'd marry "that good woman who put me right with the Lord, got me away from the bottle and taught me what life is really all about." Which was to say, some church girl that resembles a pile of loose fat upholstered with pale goopy skin, and whose whole life is chocolate cake and visiting her sister.

Walking past all the cops, all the detectives, I raise my runner’s shirt a few inches, like I’m shaking it loose form my damp skin. I let them all see my stomach, its tautness. I let everyone see I’m not afraid, and that I’m not anything but a silly cheerleader, a feather-bodied sixteen-year-old with no more sense than a marshmellow peep. I let them see I’m not anything. least of all what I am.

He loved her manner of sleepy acquiescence when they lay on the beach at dusk. He drew solace and sedation from her nearness. He had a craving to touch her always, to remain always in physical communication. He liked to encircle her ankle loosely with his fingers...to lightly and lovingly caress the downy skin of her fair, smooth thigh with the backs of his nails or dreamily, sensuously, almost unconsciously, slide his proprietary, respectful hand up the shell-like ridge of her spine... ...she was puzzled by the convulsive ecstasy men could take from [her body], by the intense and amazing need they had merely to touch it, to reach out urgently and press it, squeeze it, rub it... ...It thrilled Nurse Duckett rapturously that Yossarian could not keep his hand off her when they were together. She loved to look at his wide, long, sinewy back with its bronzed, unblemished skin. She loved to bring him to flame instantly by taking his whole ear in her mouth suddenly and running her hand down his front all the way. She loved to make him burn and suffer till dark, then satisfy him. Then kiss him adoringly because she had brought him such bliss.

He had changed, of course, but the change was subtle; as though he had been put into an oven and baked to a hard finish. He looked as though both muscle and skin had drawn in just a bit, grown closer to the bone, so he was more tightly knit; he had never seemed gawky, but the last hint of boyish looseness had vanished.

Breathing heavily, Major-General Gudz was making his way towards Mostovskoy. He shuffled along, wheezing and sticking out his lower lip; folds of loose skin rippled over his cheeks and neck. At one time he had been impressively stout, and these sounds and movements were all that remained; now they seemed quite bizarre.

. Even Proust—there’s a famous passage where Odette opens the door with a cold, she’s sulky, her hair is loose and undone, her skin is patchy, and Swann, who has never cared about her until that moment, falls in love with her because she looks like a Botticelli girl from a slightly damaged fresco. Which Proust himself only knew from a reproduction. He never saw the original, in the Sistine Chapel. But even so—the whole novel is in some ways about that moment. And the damage is part of the attraction, the painting’s blotchy cheeks. Even through a copy Proust was able to re-dream that image, re-shape reality with it, pull something all his own from it into the world. Because—the line of beauty is the line of beauty. It doesn’t matter if it’s been through the Xerox machine a hundred times.

I will bury myself alive. I will cut my skin to shreds. I swear I will, I will. And I'll burn this fucking house down if it means I can cut you loose, be free, be without Gavin Davis.

I walked out of the condos onto the flat lithesome beach this morning, and took a walk in my swimming trunks and no shirt on. And I thought that one natural effect of life is to cover you in a thin layer of . . . what? A film? A residue or skin of all the things you've done and been and said and erred at? I'm not sure. But you are under it, and for a long time, and only rarely do you know it, except that for some unexpected reason or opportunity you come out--for an hour or even a moment--and you suddenly feel pretty good. And in that magical instant you realize how long it's been since you felt just that way. Have you been ill, you ask. Is life itself an illness or a syndrome? Who knows? We've all felt that way, I'm confident, since there's no way that I could feel what hundreds of millions of other citizens haven't. Only suddenly, then, you are out of it--that film, that skin of life--as when you were a kid. And you think: this must've been the way it was once in my life, though you didn't know it then, and don't really even remember it--a feeling of wind on your cheeks and your arms, of being released, let loose, of being the light-floater. And since that is not how it has been for a long time, you want, this time, to make it last, this glistening one moment, this cool air, this new living, so that you can preserve a feeling of it, inasmuch as when it comes again it may just be too late. You may just be too old. And in truth, of course, this may be the last time that you will ever feel this way again.

Hot.” The last word, barely a whisper, lost itself in my hair as he pressed his lips to that spot just below my ear that can, apparently, flip the off switch in my brain. Before I realized it my hands were inside that jacket, stroking the hard planes of his chest and stomach. And then, as if moving without any prompting from me they reached down, undid his belt, pulled it loose, and…“Ahhh, that feels great,” I moaned.“I am completely grossed out over here!” Cassandra informed us.Vayl, who’d been peering down at me with an expression of utter disbelief, stared at Cassandra over the top of my head. “It is not what you think,” he assured her.“As if I’d do something that disgusting,” I said, pulling away from him, but keeping the belt, because the buckle relieved the itching so much better than fingernails. I continued using it to scratch the inflamed skin across my stomach as I sat down by Cassandra. “You are pathetic,” she told me. “I’d get all offended, but I’m pretty sure you’re right.

I know what you are going to say: sticks, stones, and broken bones, but words can kick you in the gut. They wriggle underneath your skin and start to itch. They set their hooks into you and pull. Words accumulate like a cancer, and then they eat away at you until there is nothing left. And once they are let loose there really is no taking them back.

A clatter of metal against the concrete made me look back. Liam had moved on from the car to a nearby pile of bikes that were tangled together like brambles. He picked through the frames and spokes and wheels, working carefully, trying to get down to whatever he'd seen under them.... "Do you actually know how to ride?" "Do I know how to ride?" Liam scoffed, leaning over the bike's seat so his face was inches from mine. His pale blue eyes were electric with his excitement; they sent a charge through me, sizzling the rest of the world into peaceful, quiet static. That last bit of distance must have been as unbearable to him as it was to me, because his fingers came down over where my hands rested on the busted leather seat. I felt his touch spread over my skin like late afternoon sunshine. His lips skimmed my cheek, his breath warm against my ear as he said in low, honeyed tones, "Not only can I ride, darlin', but I can give you a few pointers– "Hey, Hell's Angels!" Cole barked. "I didn't bring you in here to shop around for yourselves! Get your assess over here!" Liam expression clouded over as he pulled back, the fluttering excitement vanishing like a candle blown out. with a single breath. I must have looked as disappointed as I felt, letting out a small sound of irritation, because just like that he was smiling again as he tucked a loose strand of hair back over my ear. A softer, smaller smile than before, but one meant for me. It warmed me down to my bones.

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse. The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

He tried to catch her eye, but all he got was the slightest nod before she looked away. He had no idea how he knew there was gratitude in that nod, but he did. The loose lock of hair that always seemed to escape the confines of her bun fell across her cheek. I want to be your hair. How many times had he said that to her? Not once had she needed to ask him what he meant. Her hair- midnight spun into strands- was always kissing her cheeks, playing with her collarbones, caressing her skin.

Savannah came to him instantly, her face lit up with some emotion he dared not name.She was in a man's silk shirt and nothing else. The buttons were open so that the edges gaped to reveal her high, full breasts, and narrow rib cage. Another step and her tiny waist and flat stomach, the triangle of tight ebony curls, showed for an intriguing moment before the long tails of the shirt brushed back into place. Her long hair cascaded loose and moved around her like living, breathing silk. With every step she took, he caught glimpses of satin skin. At once the dull roar started in his head. Heat exploded through his blood, and his body tightened with alarming urgency. Every good and noble intention seemed to go up in flames. She smiled up at him, her slender arms sliding around his neck. "I'm so glad you're home," she whispered softly, her mouth finding the pulse in his throat.

My mind had no answers. It was limp and dulled, useless as my missing fingers. One thought came clear: I must do something. I could not stand by while a horror was loosed upon the world. I had the thought that I should find my sister’s workroom. Perhaps there would be something there to help me, some antidote, some great drug of reversal. It was not far, a hall off her bedchamber separated by a curtain. I had never seen another witch’s craft room before, and I walked its shelves expecting I do not know what, a hundred grisly things, kraken livers, dragons’ teeth, the flayed skin of giants. But all I saw were herbs, and rudimentary ones at that: poisons, poppies, a few healing roots. I had no doubt my sister could work plenty with them, for her will had always been strong. But she was lazy, and here was the proof. Those few simples were old and weak as dead leaves. They had been collected haphazardly, some in bud, some already withered, cut with any knife at any time of day. I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me. And my own herbs from Aiaia would not be enough, strong as they were. The monster was bound to Crete, and whatever would be done, Crete must guide me.

He didn't like causing her discomfort. "How are your hands?" He held his out, palm up. Rounding the bed slowly, she placed hers in them. Stanislav sat up straighter and examined them closely, then swore. Raw, open blisters marred the skin at the crooks of her thumbs and the base of every finger. She had gripped that shovel for so long that the blisters had all popped and the flap of loose skin on each had torn away. It looked painful. And she had said nothing, not even complaining when she had held one hand over the steaming pot of pasta while stirring it, something that must have made her hand hurt even more. "Stop beating yourself up about it," she ordered softly. He raised his head, on a level with hers though he sat and she stood. "I wasn't intentionally listening to your thoughts," she told him. "You were sort of broadcasting them. And it wasn't your fault." "I beg to differ. Had I not compelled you to dig me up—" "You would probably be dead right now," she finished for him. Withdrawing one hand, she drew it over his hair. "It was worth it." His pulse raced at her touch. His gaze dropped to her lips. He heard her heartbeat pick up.

I Knew a Woman" I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek). How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand; She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin; I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand; She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake, Coming behind her for her pretty sake (But what prodigious mowing we did make). Love likes a gander, and adores a goose: Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize; She played it quick, she played it light and loose; My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees; Her several parts could keep a pure repose, Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose (She moved in circles, and those circles moved). Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay: I’m martyr to a motion not my own; What’s freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow white as stone. But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to learn her wanton ways: (I measure time by how a body sways).

When a single cat let loose a war cry, it was an unsettling sound. When two cats suddenly wailed at each other in a similar fashion, it was downright unnerving. When hundreds of them caterwauled at the same time, in a single voice, the sound alone was enough to make one feel as if the skin had been peeled from one's muscle and bone, to call up horrors inherited from ancestors long since dead and forgotten, raw terror before a deadly predator.

He did atrocious things, but it was him I wanted. Always, only him. Troy stopped when we were nose to nose. Toe to toe. I loved watching those eyes from up-close. They were so ocean blue, no wonder they made my head swim. “I love you, Red. I love you determined, tough, innocent, resilient…” His brows furrowed as he drank me in, stroking the curve of my face with his calloused fingertips. “I love you broken, insecure, scared, furious and pissed off…” He let a small smile loose. I actually felt it, even though it was on his lips. “I love every part of you, the good and the bad, the hopeless and the assertive. We don’t just love. We heal each other with every touch and complete each other with ever kiss. And fuck, I know it’s corny as hell, but that’s what I need. You’re what I need.” My eyes fluttered shut, a lone tear hanging from the tip of my eyelash. “We don’t have ordinary words between us. You always set my fucking brain on fire when you talk to me. We don’t even have ordinary moments of silence. I always feel like I’m playing with you or being played by you when you’re around. And I refuse to let you walk out on this, on us.” He cupped my cheeks and I locked his palms in place, tightening my grip. I never wanted him to let go. He dipped his head down, tilting his forehead against mine. I knew he was right. Knew that I’d already forgiven him. Probably before I even knew what he did, when we were still living together. Hell, probably on that dance floor, when I was nine. My capturer. My monster. My savior. “I’m an asshole, was an asshole, and have every intention of staying an asshole. It’s the makeup of my fucking DNA. But I want to be your asshole. To you, I can be good. Maybe even great. For you, I’ll stop the rain from falling and the thunder from cracking and the wind from fucking blowing. And yes, I sure as hell knew you’d come back. You came straight back into my arms, flew back to your nest, lovebird. Now why would you do that if you didn’t love the shit out of me?” My eyes roamed his face. His hands felt delicious on my skin. It was like he was pumping life into me with his fingertips. Like he made me whole before I even knew parts of me were missing.

Don’t know if I should be pleased or worried,” Alis said the next night as she slid the golden underdress over my upraised arms, then tugged it down. I smiled a bit, marveling at the intricate metallic lace that clung to my arms and torso like a second skin before falling loosely to the rug. “It’s just a dress,” I said, lifting my arms again as she brought over the gossamer turquoise overgown. It was sheer enough to see the gleaming gold mesh beneath, and light and airy and full of movement, as if it flowed on an invisible current. Alis just chuckled to herself and guided me over to the vanity to work on my hair. I didn’t have the courage to look at the mirror as she fussed over me. “Does this mean you’ll be wearing gowns from now on?” she asked, separating sections of my hair for whatever wonders she was doing to it. “No,” I said quickly. “I mean—I’ll be wearing my usual clothes during the day, but I thought it might be nice to … try it out, at least for tonight.” “I see. Good that you aren’t losing your common sense entirely, then.

Betelgeuse. Sirius. Orion. Antares. The sky is very large, and you are very small. Let the words wash through him, the voice and its memories pass over him, shivering his skin like the touch of a ghost, vanishing into darkness. The Pleiades. Cassiopeia. Taurus. Heaven is wide, and you are very small. Dead, but none the less powerful for being dead. He spread his hands wide, gripping the fence—those were powerful, too. Enough to beat a man to death, enough to choke out a life. But even death was not enough to loose the bands of rage. With great effort, he let go. Turned his hands palm upward, in gesture of surrender. He reached beyond the stars, searching. The words formed themselves quietly in his mind, by habit, so quietly he was not aware of them until he found them echoed in a whisper on his lips.

I let myself relax into the moment, into friendship. 'Now what about my hairpin?' He grins and hands it over. I smooth my thumb over the silver bird, then use it to pull back his hair, instead of mine. As my fingers skim over his neck, threading through the silk of his locks, he shudders from something I do not think is cold. I am suddenly too aware of the physicality of him, his long legs and the curve of his mouth, the hollow of his throat and the sharp point of his ears, where earrings once hung. Of the hairs hanging loose from my pin, falling across one light brown horn to rest on his cheekbone. When his eyes meet mine, desire, as keen as any blade, bends the air between us. The moment slows. I want to bite his lip. To feel the heat of his skin. To slide my hands beneath his armour and trace the map of his scars.

Pulling to a stop in front of Aly’s house, I take a deep breath. With a flick of my wrist, I cut the engine and listen to the silence. I’ve sat in this exact spot more times than I can count. In many ways, Aly’s house is like my sanctuary. A place I go when my own home feels like a graveyard. I glance up at the bedroom window of the girl who knows me better than anyone, the only person I let see me cry after Dad died. I won’t let this experiment take that or her away from me. Tonight, I’m going to prove that Aly and I can go back to our normal, easy friendship. Throwing open my door, I trudge up her sidewalk, plant my feet outside her front door, and ring the bell. “Coming!” I step back and see Aly stick her head out of her second-story window. “No problem,” I call back up. “Take your time.” More time to get my head on straight. Aly disappears behind a film of yellow curtain, and I turn to look out at the quiet neighborhood. Up and down the street, the lights blink on, filling the air with a low hum that matches the thrumming of my nerves. Across the street, old Mr. Lawson sits at his usual perch under a gigantic American flag, drinking beer and mumbling to himself. Two little girls ride their bikes around the cul-de-sac, smiling and waving. Just a normal, run-of-the-mill Friday night. Except not. I thrust my hands into my pockets, jiggling the loose change from my Taco Bell run earlier tonight, and grab my pack of Trident. I toss a stick into my mouth and chew furiously. Supposedly, the smell of peppermint can calm your nerves. I grab a second stick and shove it in, too. With the clacking sound of Aly’s shoes approaching the door behind me, I remind myself again about tonight’s mission. All I need is focus. I take another deep breath for good measure and rock back on my heels, ready to greet my best friend. She opens the door, wearing a black dress molded to her skin, and I let the air out in one big huff.

I slide to the floor. I feel something warm on my neck, and under my cheek. Red. Blood is a strange color. Dark. From the corner of my eye, I see David slumped over in his chair. And my mother walking out from behind him. She is dressed in the same clothes she wore the last time I saw her, Abnegation gray, stained with her blood, with bare arms to show her tattoo. There are still bullet holes in her shirt; through them I can see her wounded skin, red but no longer bleeding, like she’s frozen in time. Her dull blond hair is tied back in a knot, but a few loose strands frame her face in gold. I know she can’t be alive, but I don’t know if I’m seeing her now because I’m delirious from the blood loss of if the death serum has addled my thoughts or if she is here in some other way. She kneels next to me and touches a cool hand to my cheek. “Hello, Beatrice,” she says, and she smiles. “Am I done yet?” I say, and I’m not sure if I actually say it or if I just think it and she hears it. “Yes,” she says, her eyes bright with tears. “My dear child, you’ve done so well.” “What about the others?” I choke on a sob as the image of Tobias comes into my mind, of how dark and how still his eyes were, how strong and warm his hand was, when we first stood face-to-face. “Tobias, Caleb, my friends?” “They’ll care for each other,” she says. “That’s what people do.” I smile and close my eyes. I feel a thread tugging me again, but this time I know that it isn’t some sinister force dragging me toward death. This time I know it’s my mother’s hand, drawing me into her arms. And I go gladly into her embrace. Can I be forgiven for all I’ve done to get here? I want to be. I can. I believe it.

He wet a paper towel, and took my chin, lifting and wiping my face. "Derek? I'm not hurt." "You're covered in blood." "But it's not mine. Honest. It's from—" "The werewolf. I know." He picked up my hand and started cleaning it. "That's why I have to get it off." "Derek?" I leaned down, trying to see his face. "Are you okay?" He kept scrubbing. "There are two ways to become a werewolf. Either you're born or you get bitten by one. If you get saliva in your bloodstream, it's like a virus." "Blood, too?" "Dad says no, it's just saliva. But he could be wrong, and you've got cuts and scrapes and blood all over." I had a few cuts and scrapes, and I was only flecked with blood, but I kept my mouth shut and let him clean. As he did, I tried to check out how badly he was hurt. His scraped cheeks were pitted with gravel. His nose was bloodied. Broken? One eye was already darkening. Was that blood in the corner? His lip was cut and swollen. Were any teeth loose? MIssing? "Stop fidgeting, Chloe." I couldn't help it. His injuries obviously needed more attention than mine, but here was no sense saying anything until he was done. Finally, when he seemed to have scrubbed off every fleck of blood—and a few layers of skin—I said, "Okay, now on to you." "Take off your jacket and sweatshirt." "Derek, I'm clean. Trust me, I've never been this clean." "You've got blood on your cuffs." *** "Okay, now can we take care of the guy that was actually in the fight? There's a lot of blood. It seems to be mostly from your nose." "It is." "You got hit in the chest a few times. How are your ribs?" "Maybe bruised. Nothing critical." "Shirt off." He sighed, like now I was the one fussing too much

K, boys, it’s shirts against skins. Lose ‘em,” Lucy said, pointing to the guys and ignoring Thad. “I beg your pardon?” Thad said, aghast. “Why do we have to be skins?” Josh complained. Lucy looked at Erin and they both shrugged and grabbed the hems of their shirts, preparing to haul them over their heads. “Whoa!” Sable said, covering his eyes immediately. “Wait,” Josh, Angelo, and Thad said at the same time. “Hell, yeah,” Blaze chimed in. The girls stopped right before they fully exposed their chest. “What? You guys act like none of you have ever seen a pair of boobs in a bra before. Josh saw mine a few hours ago and I know, for a fact, that three of you have seen hers outside the bra.” Lucy looked pointedly at Thad, Blaze, and Angelo. Erin’s head snapped in Josh’s direction. “JOSH!” she screeched, accidentally letting loose a snap of electricity.

Jack didn't try to speak to me the following day. Or the day after.Or the day after that. But he was in Mrs. Stone's classroom, in the seat next to mine, every day for an hour after school, the only sounds coming from our pencils scratching against our papers. And the days passed like this quickly. Too quickly. I stole glances at him.Sometimes he tucked his hair behind one ear, but mostly it hung loose around his face. Sometimes he had stubble,as if he were shaving every other day.Sometimes I was sure he could feel me staring.His lip would twitch,and I'd know he was about to turn toward me,so I would hurry and look at my paper. And sometimes I would read the same sentence in the textbook over and over, and at the end of the hour, the only thing I'd learned was that Jack liked to tap his eraser on his desk when he was stumped, and when he would stretch forward,his shirt lifted,exposing a tiny bit of skin on his back.

...he used to speak of how with very great paintings it's possible to know them deeply, inhabit them almost, even through copies. Even Proust -- there's a famous passage where Odette opens the door with a cold, she's sulky, her hair is loose and undone, her skin is patchy, and Swann, who has never cared about her until that moment, falls in love with her because she looks like a Botticelli girl from a slightly damaged fresco. Which Proust himself only knew from a reproduction. He never saw the original, in the Sistine Chapel. But even so -- the whole novel is in some ways about that moment. And the damage is part of the attraction, the painting's blotchy cheeks. Even through a copy Proust was able to re-dream the image, re-shape reality with it, pull something all his own from it into the world. Because -- the line of beauty is the line of beauty. It doesn't matter if it's been through the Xerox machine a hundred times.

This was to be my last trip. Sailing great distances was dangerous, and not very profitable in today's world. I walked down the worn wooden step to the captain's cabin, the creaking of the ship keeping time with my steps. Opening the door I found him bent over an old map. "Where are we captain?" I asked, hoping it was close to home. "See this spot, where it says "Here there be monsters"?" he said pointing to an image of a horrid beast. "Certainly, but you and I both know such creatures don't exist!!" The captain laughed, and looking up at me with an evil glint in his eye said, "Who's talking about sea monsters?". As he spoke the skin from one corner of his mouth fell loose, exposing a yellow reptilian skin beneath. "What?" I yelled, and as I turned to run for the cabin door I heard screams and loud moans coming from the deck, and the crew quarters below. I felt fetid breath on the back of my neck, "Aye matey, here there be monsters

Hurricane Katrina arrived without a confirmed weather category, or a name that adequately addressed anger summoned from a thousand leagues down. When the levees broke in New Orleans images escaped television screens to tattoo every skin with the shameful reality that America’s towers fell twice. There was no phoenix. Only mosquitoes escaped the ashes, promising to puncture any still unbloodied with the needle kiss of plague. Then, a great swarm of dragonflies, sent by some other to even the odds. They feasted on the thin-limbed vampires, devoured body and virus, and then hovered around the floating bloated bodies of forgotten grandmothers, armored escorts of the dead. Their wings hummed swamp sonnets while their mouths swallowed maggots, thwarting attempts to hurry death beyond spring sunsets and autumn graves. They kept up their holy procession until New Orleans rebirthed jazz and cut the bodies loose and let saints march in all over again. As I steer my bike through one puddle after the other, making the street music urban rainforest dwellers know, I ask the splash to summon the dragonfly. Call her from the swamp into my throat to name the lump that will never loose me. Be my escort, gobble the flies ever entering me before their children become my whole.

Callie rises up inside me, wearing my skin like a loose robe. She sticks her little hands into the baggy sleeves of my arms. She inserts her chimp’s feet through the trousers of my legs. On the sidewalk I’ll feel her girlish walk take over, and the movement brings back a kind of emotion, a desolate and gossipy sympathy for the girls I see coming home from school. This continues for a few more steps. Calliope’s hair tickles the back of my throat. I feel her press tentatively on my chest—that old nervous habit of hers—to see if anything is happening there. The sick fluid of adolescent despair that runs through her veins overflows again into mine.

To be thin-skinned, far-sighted, and loose-tongued," he said, "is to feel too sharply, see too clearly, speak too freely. It is to be vulnerable to the world when the world believes itself invulnerable, to understand its mutability when it thinks itself immutable, to sense what's coming before others sense it, to know that the barbarian future is tearing down the gates of the present while others cling to the decadent, hollow past. If our children are fortunate they will only inherit your ears, but regrettably, as they are undeniably mine, they will probably think too much too soon, and hear too much too early, including things that are not permitted to be thought or heard.

She winced to remember herself at seventeen, in high school, how, after the first illuminating weekend, everything spoke sex to her. The way the light pulsed the leaves of the ragweed in the ditches, the way clothes teased her skin as she moved. The words leaving a person’s mouth, how they were tongued, rolled, lipped before they emerged. It was as if the man had suddenly reached into her and pulled out an earthquake and set it loose on her skin. She walked the last weeks of high school wanting to eat every one of these delicious boys. If she had only been allowed, she would have swallowed them whole. She smiled at them hugely; they scurried away. She’d laughed, but felt it was a shame.

Will you come and tell me when the music ends When the musicians are swallowed in flames Every instrument blackening and crumbling to ash When the dancers stumble and sprawl their diseased limbs rotting off and twitching the skin sloughing away Will you come and tell me when the music ends When the stars we pushed into the sky loose their roars And the clouds we built into visible rage do now explode When the bright princes of privilege march past with dead smiles falling from their faces a host of deceiving masks Will you come and tell me when the music ends When reason sinks into the morass of superstition Waging a war of ten thousand armies stung to the lash When we stop looking up even as we begin our mad running into stupidity’s nothingness with heavenly choirs screaming Will you come and tell me when the music ends When the musicians are no more than black grinning sticks Every instrument wailing its frantic death cry down the road When the ones left standing have had their mouths cut off leaving holes from which a charnel wind eternally blows

Cheat propped his elbows on his knees and gazed up at Kestrel. He scrutinized her: the long, loosely clasped hands, the folds of her dress. Kestrel’s clothes had mysteriously appeared in the suite’s wardrobe, probably while she had slept, and she was glad. The dueling ensemble had served well enough, but wearing a dress fit for society made Kestrel feel ready for different kinds of battle. “Where is Arin?” Cheat said. “In the mountains.” “Doing what?” “I don’t know. I imagine that, since the Valorian reinforcements will come through the mountain pass, he is analyzing its values and drawbacks as a battleground.” Cheat gave her a gleeful smirk. “Does it bother you, being a traitor?” “I don’t see how I am.” “You just confirmed that the reinforcements will come through the pass. Thank you.” “It’s hardly worth thanking me,” she said. “Almost every useful ship in the empire has been sent east, which means there is no other way into the city. Anyone with brains could figure that out, which is why Arin is in the mountains, and you are here.” A flush began to build under Cheat’s skin.

It was the Gypsy, the boy with the eyes of a hungry panther. He had removed his coat and waistcoat... and his necktie as well... so that his upper half was covered only in a thin white shirt that had been tucked loosely into the waist of his close-fitting trousers. The sight of him elicited the same reaction Daisy had felt upstairs- a swift sting in her chest followed by the rapid pumping of her heart. Paralyzed by the realization that she was alone in the room with him, Daisy watched with unblinking eyes as he approached her slowly. She had never seen any living being who had been fashioned with such dark exotic beauty... his skin the color of raw clover honey, the light hazel of his eyes framed with heavy black lashes, his thick obsidian hair tumbled over his forehead.

The way I feel about you, Jacinda...I know you feel it, too." He stares at me so starkly, so hungrily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. "I do," I admit. But I don't understand him. Don't get why he should feel this way about me. Why should he want me so much? What do I offer him? Why did he save me that day in the mountains? And why does he pursue me now? When no girl spiked his interest before? "Good," he says. "Then how about a date?" "A date?" I repeat, like I've never heard the word. "Yeah. A real date. Something official. You. Me. Tonight. We're long overdue." His smile deepens, revealing the deep grooves on the sides of his cheeks. "Dinner. Movie. Popcorn." "Yes." The word slips past. For a moment I forget. Forget that I'm not an ordinary girl. That he's not an ordinary boy. For the first time, I understand Tamra. And the appeal of normal. "Yes." It feels good to say it. To pretend. To drink in the sight of him and forget there's an ulterior reason I need to go out with him. A reason that's going to tear us apart forever. Stupid. Did you think you might have a future with him? Mom's right. Time to grow up. He smiles. Then he's gone. Out the door. For a second, I'm confused. Then he's at my door, opening it, helping me out. Together we walk through the parking lot. Side by side. We move only a few feet before he slips his hand around mine. As we near the front of the building, I see several kids hanging out around the flagpole. Tamra with her usual crowd. Brooklyn at the head. I try to tug my hand free. His fingers tighten on mine. I glance at him, see the resolve in his eyes. His hazel eyes glint brightly in the already too hot morning. "Coward." "Oh." The single sound escapes me. Outrage. Indignation. I stop. Turn and face him. Feel something slip, give way, and crumble loose inside me. Set free, it propels me. Standing on my tiptoes, I circle my hand around his neck and pull his face down to mine. Kiss him. Right there in front of the school. Reckless. Stupid. I stake a claim on him like I've got something to prove, like a drake standing before the pride in a bonding ceremony. But then I forget our audience. Forget everything but the dry heat of our lips. My lungs tighten, contract. I feel my skin shimmer, warm as my lungs catch. Crackling heat works its way up my chest. Not the smartest move I've ever made.

You returned,” the prince whispered. “Does the offer still stand, Pr—Merrick? Do you still want me?” His voice quivered as he waited, hoped. “So much, I do not feel comfortable in my own skin. It is as if you lit a fire within me that I cannot control…and I don’t want to, Cassius.” Cassius yearned to fall to his knees in gratitude. He stepped farther inside as Merrick stood. Cassius closed the door, clicking the lock into place behind him. When the prince reached him, his arm rose and he fingered Cas’s hair, which was loose around his face. He never allowed himself to wear his hair down outside his chamber, and he couldn’t believe he had forgotten. “Forgive me… I…” “There is nothing to forgive. You are…breathtaking, Cassius.” “Cas. If I am to call you Merrick when we are alone, you can call me Cas if you’d like

I have something to show you." He sank down next to me and handed me a sketchbook. I opened it. And saw the mermaid. She was drawn in colored ink, exquisitely detailed; each scale had a little picture in it: a pyramid, a rocket, a peacock, a lamp. Her torso was patterened red, like a tattoo, like coral. She had a thin strand of seaweed around her neck, with a starfish holding on to the center. Her hair was a tumble of loose black curls. She had my face. I turned the page.And another and another. There she was fighting a creature that was half human, half octopus. Exploring a cave. Riding a shark. Laughing and petting a stingray that rested on her lap. "I'm calling her Cora Lia for the moment," Alex told me. "I thought about Corella, but it sounded like cheap dishware." "She's...amazing." "She's fierce. Fighting the Evil Sea-Dragon King and his minions." I traced the red tattoo on her chest. "This is beautiful." Alex reached into my sweater, pulled the loose neck of the T-shirt away from my shoulder. I didn't stop him. "It looks like coral to me." He touched me, then,the pad of his thumb tracing the outline of the scar. It felt strange, partly because of the difference in the tissue, but more because in the last few years, the only hands that had touched me there were mine. I set the book aside carefully. "Guess I don't see what you do." "That's too bad, because I see you perfectly." I curved myself into him. "Maybe you're exactly what I need." "Like there's any doubt?" He buried his face in my neck.I didn't stop him. "So." "So?" "We'll kill a few hours, watch the sunrise, have pancakes, and you'll drive home." "What?" I felt him smile against my skin. "I got you swimming with sharks. Next on the Conquer Your Fears list is driving a stick shift.Right?" "One thing at a time," I said. Then, "Oh. Do that again." In another story, the intrepid heroine would have gone running out and splashed in the surf, hypothermia be damned. She would have driven the Mustang home, booked a haircut, taken up stand-up comedy, and danced on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. But this was me, and I was moving at my own pace. Truth: My story started a hundred years ago. There's time.

Today I saw the most beautiful girl in the world... She is the most beautiful girl in the world, Bartolomeo Scappi thought. Never have I seen a woman so perfect, so angelic, so impossible for me to attain. "Bella," he breathed when air filled his lungs once again. Even Ippolito d'Este's presence at the dining table could not mar his giddiness. The girl was so beautiful she glowed like a painting of the Madonna, making everyone around her seem colorless in comparison. She was clearly a principessa of a grand house, sitting between Ippolito's father, the Duke of Ferrara, on one side, and a woman most likely to be her mother on the right. Bartolomeo sought to memorize every feature of this goddess with golden hair that shone with glints of red in the last rays of the day's sunlight. Her eyes were dark chestnut, rich and deep, while her lips were pink, like the inside of a seashell. Her hair was braided, but much of it flowed loose over shoulders, teasing her pale skin. She wore a dress of red, with sleeves billowing white. Rubies and pearls spilled across her delicate collarbone toward her beautiful breasts. Scappi painted her picture in his mind and stored it deep within the frame of his heart. That evening, while staring at the sky, his thoughts lost in the memory of the signorina, a shooting star passed across his vision. "Stella," he said under his breath. I will call her Stella. My shining star.

At some indefinite passage in night's sonorous score, it also came to her that she would be safe, that something, perhaps only her linearly fading drunkenness, would protect her. The city was hers, as, made up and sleeked so with the customary words and images (cosmopolitan, culture, cable cars) it had not been before: she had safe-passage tonight to its far blood's branchings, be they capillaries too small for more than peering into, or vessels mashed together in shameless municipal hickeys, out on the skin for all but tourists to see. Nothing of the night's could touch her; nothing did. The repetition of symbols was to be enough, without trauma as well perhaps to attenuate it or even jar it altogether loose from her memory. She was meant to remember. She faced that possibility as she might the toy street from a high balcony, roller-coaster ride, feeding-time among the beasts in a zoo—any death-wish that can be consummated by some minimum gesture. She touched the edge of its voluptuous field, knowing it would be lovely beyond dreams simply to submit to it; that not gravity's pull, laws of ballistics, feral ravening, promised more delight. She tested it, shivering: I am meant to remember. Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence. But then she wondered if the gemlike "clues" were only some kind of compensation. To make up for her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night.

She had just given Liger his food when a tap sounded on the connecting door. Priss’s heart leaped into her throat. With excitement. Not dread, or annoyance, or even indifference. Pure, sizzling stimulation. Suddenly she was wide-awake. Tamping down her automatic smile, Priss leaned on the door. “Yeah?” “Open up.” Still fighting that twitching grin, Priss tried to sound disgruntled as she asked, “Why?” Something hit the door—maybe his head—and Trace said, “I heard you up and moving around, Priss. I have coffee ready, but if you don’t want any—” Being a true caffeine junkie, she jerked open the door. “Oh, bless you, man.” She took the cup straight out of Trace’s hand, drank deeply and sighed as the warmth penetrated the thick fog of novel sentiment. “Ahhhh. Nirvana. Thank you.” Only after the caffeine ingestion did she notice that Trace wore unsnapped jeans and nothing else. Her eyes flared wide and her jaw felt loose. Holy moly. “That was my cup,” Trace told her, bemused. But Priss could only stare at him. Despite the delicious coffee she’d just poured in it, her mouth went dry. When she continued to stare at him, at his chest and abdomen, her gaze tracking a silky line of brown hair that disappeared into his jeans, Trace crossed his arms. Her gaze jumped to his face and she found him watching her with equal fascination. A little lost as to the reason for that look, Priss asked with some belligerence, “What?” With a cryptic smile, Trace shook his head. “Never mind. Help yourself, and I’ll get another.” Oh, crap, she’d snatched away his cup! “Sorry.” He lifted a hand in dismissal and went to the coffee machine sitting atop the dresser. His jeans rode low on his hips. The sun had darkened his skin, creating a sharp contrast to his fair hair. Another drink was in order, and another sigh of bliss. Hoping to regain her wits, Priss said, “God, nothing in the world tastes better than that first drink of coffee.” Trace looked over his shoulder, his attention zeroing in on her mouth, then her chest and finally down to her bare legs. “Oh, I don’t know about that.

After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, 'Let the children come!' and they ran from the trees toward her. 'Let your mothers hear you laugh,' she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then 'Let the grown men come,' she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. 'Let your wives and your children see you dance,' she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet. Finally she called the women to her. 'Cry,' she told them. 'For the living and the dead. Just cry.' And without covering their eyes the women let loose. It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart. She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it. 'Here,' she said, 'in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. These they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And nom they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.

The Dying Man" in memoriam W.B. Yeats 1. His words I heard a dying man Say to his gathered kin, “My soul’s hung out to dry, Like a fresh salted skin; I doubt I’ll use it again. “What’s done is yet to come; The flesh deserts the bone, But a kiss widens the rose I know, as the dying know Eternity is Now. “A man sees, as he dies, Death’s possibilities; My heart sways with the world. I am that final thing, A man learning to sing. 2. What Now? Caught in the dying light, I thought myself reborn. My hand turn into hooves. I wear the leaden weight Of what I did not do. Places great with their dead, The mire, the sodden wood, Remind me to stay alive. I am the clumsy man The instant ages on. I burned the flesh away, In love, in lively May. I turn my look upon Another shape than hers Now, as the casement blurs. In the worst night of my will, I dared to question all, And would the same again. What’s beating at the gate? Who’s come can wait. 3. The Wall A ghost comes out of the unconscious mind To grope my sill: It moans to be reborn! The figure at my back is not my friend; The hand upon my shoulder turns to horn. I found my father when I did my work, Only to lose myself in this small dark. Though it reject dry borders of the seen, What sensual eye can keep and image pure, Leaning across a sill to greet the dawn? A slow growth is a hard thing to endure. When figures our of obscure shadow rave, All sensual love’s but dancing on a grave. The wall has entered: I must love the wall, A madman staring at perpetual night, A spirit raging at the visible. I breathe alone until my dark is bright. Dawn’s where the white is. Who would know the dawn When there’s a dazzling dark behind the sun. 4. The Exulting Once I delighted in a single tree; The loose air sent me running like a child– I love the world; I want more than the world, Or after image of the inner eye. Flesh cries to flesh, and bone cries out to bone; I die into this life, alone yet not alone. Was it a god his suffering renewed?– I saw my father shrinking in his skin; He turned his face: there was another man, Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid. He quivered like a bird in birdless air, Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere. Fish feed on fish, according to their need: My enemies renew me, and my blood Beats slower in my careless solitude. I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed. I think a bird, and it begins to fly. By dying daily, I have come to be. All exultation is a dangerous thing. I see you, love, I see you in a dream; I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum, And that slow humming rises into song. A breath is but a breath: I have the earth; I shall undo all dying with my death. 5. They Sing, They Sing All women loved dance in a dying light– The moon’s my mother: how I love the moon! Out of her place she comes, a dolphin one, Then settles back to shade and the long night. A beast cries out as if its flesh were torn, And that cry takes me back where I was born. Who thought love but a motion in the mind? Am I but nothing, leaning towards a thing? I scare myself with sighing, or I’ll sing; Descend O gentlest light, descend, descend. I sweet field far ahead, I hear your birds, They sing, they sing, but still in minor thirds. I’ve the lark’s word for it, who sings alone: What’s seen recededs; Forever’s what we know!– Eternity defined, and strewn with straw, The fury of the slug beneath the stone. The vision moves, and yet remains the same. In heaven’s praise, I dread the thing I am. The edges of the summit still appall When we brood on the dead or the beloved; Nor can imagination do it all In this last place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.

Now Justin stood in our reading room, leaning up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He was tall, with a wiry athletic build. Usually, he was Mr. Ultra-Casual, with sun-kissed blond hair that he kept out of his eyes by pushing his sunglasses up on his forehead. Today, that messy blond hair was clean-cut, and he’d traded his typical board shorts and loose T-shirt for a striped shirt and khakis. His father, the mayor of Eastport, was running for re-election. Since the campaign started last month, Justin had become the mayor’s sixteen-year-old sidekick. I’d heard he was spending the summer working for his dad down at the town hall, which would explain the nice clothes. What sucked for me was that the new style fit him. He looked even better, the jerk. “I heard you and Tiffany got into a catfight over me at Yummy’s,” Justin announced with an overconfident grin that pissed me off. I slammed the door behind me. “First off, I dumped a soda over her head. That was it.” “Damn, a catfight sounded much hotter. I was picturing ripped shirts, exposed skin.” I rolled my eyes. “And second, it wasn’t over you, egomaniac. You can date every girl in town as far as I’m concerned. I hate you. I pray every night that you’ll fall victim to some strange and unusual castration accident.” I pointed to the door. “So get the hell out.” His lips twitched, fighting a smile. Ugh. I was going for “crazy ex filled with hate” not “isn’t she cute when she’s mad?” “Feel better after getting all that out?

Trying to get to 124 for the second time now, he regretted that conversation: the high tone he took; his refusal to see the effect of marrow weariness in a woman he believed was a mountain. Now, too late, he understood her. The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the Word, didn't count. They came in her yard anyway and she could not approve or condemn Sethe's rough choice. One or the other might have saved her, but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to bed. The whitefolks had tired her out at last. And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults; black women raped by the crew; property taken, necks broken. He smelled skin, skin and hot blood. The skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a lynch fire was a whole other thing. The stench stank. Stank up off the pages of the North Star, out of the mouths of witnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents and petitions full of whereas and presented to any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none of that had worn out his marrow. None of that. It was the ribbon. Tying his flatbed up on the bank of the Licking River, securing it the best he could, he caught sight of something red on its bottom. Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the way home, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing on his way. A moment later, his breath left him again. This time he sat down by a fence. Rested, he got to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling and said, to its frozen mud and the river beyond, "What are these people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?" When he got to his house he was too tired to eat the food his sister and nephews had prepared. He sat on the porch in the cold till way past dark and went to his bed only because his sister's voice calling him was getting nervous. He kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and his weakened marrow made him dwell on Baby Suggs' wish to consider what in the world was harmless. He hoped she stuck to blue, yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red. Mistaking her, upbraiding her, owing her, now he needed to let her know he knew, and to get right with her and her kin. So, in spite of his exhausted marrow, he kept on through the voices and tried once more to knock at the door of 124. This time, although he couldn't cipher but one word, he believed he knew who spoke them. The people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their ribbons. What a roaring.

I pulled at the knot again and heard threads begin to pop. “Allow me, Miss Jones,” said Armand, right at my back. There was no gracious way to refuse him. Not with Mrs. Westcliffe there, too. I exhaled and dropped my arms. I stared at the lotus petals in my painting as the new small twists and tugs of Armand’s hands rocked me back and forth. Jesse’s music began to reverberate somewhat more sharply than before. “There,” Armand said, soft near my ear. “Nearly got it.” “Most kind of you, my lord.” Mrs. Westcliffe’s voice was far more carrying. “Do you not agree, Miss Jones?” Her tone said I’d better. “Most kind,” I repeated. For some reason I felt him as a solid warmth behind me, behind all of me, even though only his knuckles made a gentle bumping against my spine. How blasted long could it take to unravel a knot? “Yes,” said Chloe unexpectedly. “Lord Armand is always a perfect gentleman, no matter who or what demands his attention.” “There,” the gentleman said, and at last his hands fell away. The front of the smock sagged loose. I shrugged out of it as fast as I could, wadding it up into a ball. “Excuse me.” I ducked a curtsy and began my escape to the hamper, but Mrs. Westcliffe cut me short. “A moment, Miss Jones. We require your presence.” I turned to face them. Armand was smiling his faint, cool smile. Mrs. Westcliffe looked as if she wished to fix me in some way. I raised a hand instinctively to my hair, trying to press it properly into place. “You have the honor of being invited to tea at the manor house,” the headmistress said. “To formally meet His Grace.” “Oh,” I said. “How marvelous.” I’d rather have a tooth pulled out. “Indeed. Lord Armand came himself to deliver the invitation.” “Least I could do,” said Armand. “It wasn’t far. This Saturday, if that’s all right.” “Um…” “I am certain Miss Jones will be pleased to cancel any other plans,” said Mrs. Westcliffe. “This Saturday?” Unlike me, Chloe had not concealed an inch of ground. “Why, Mandy! That’s the day you promised we’d play lawn tennis.” He cocked a brow at her, and I knew right then that she was lying and that she knew that he knew. She sent him a melting smile. “Isn’t it, my lord?” “I must have forgotten,” he said. “Well, but we cannot disappoint the duke, can we?” “No, indeed,” interjected Mrs. Westcliffe. “So I suppose you’ll have to come along to the tea instead, Chloe.” “Very well. If you insist.” He didn’t insist. He did, however, sweep her a very deep bow and then another to the headmistress. “And you, too, Mrs. Westcliffe. Naturally. The duke always remarks upon your excellent company.” “Most kind,” she said again, and actually blushed. Armand looked dead at me. There was that challenge behind his gaze, that one I’d first glimpsed at the train station. “We find ourselves in harmony, then. I shall see you in a few days, Miss Jones.” I tightened my fingers into the wad of the smock and forced my lips into an upward curve. He smiled back at me, that cold smile that said plainly he wasn’t duped for a moment. I did not get a bow. Jesse was at the hamper when I went to toss in the smock. Before I could, he took it from me, eyes cast downward, no words. Our fingers brushed beneath the cloth. That fleeting glide of his skin against mine. The sensation of hardened calluses stroking me, tender and rough at once. The sweet, strong pleasure that spiked through me, brief as it was. That had been on purpose. I was sure of it.

Sara noticed that his white teeth were slightly snaggled, giving his smile the appearance of a friendly snarl. It was then that she understood why so many women had been seduced by him. His grin held a wickedly irresistible appeal. She stared at his chest as he untied the laces and positioned her cap correctly. "Thank you," she murmured, and tried to take the strings of the cap from his fingers. But he didn't let go. He held the laces at her chin, his fingers tightening. Glancing up at him in confusion, Sara saw that his smile had vanished. In a decisive motion he pulled the concealing lace from her hair and let it fall. The cap fluttered to a patch of mud and rested there limply. Sara lifted her hand to the loose braided coil of her hair, which threatened to tumble from its pins. The chestnut locks gleamed with fiery highlights, escaping in delicate wisps around her face and throat. "Mr. Craven," she scolded breathlessly. "I find your behavior untoward and a-and offensive, not to mention-oh!" She stammered in astonishment as he reached for her spectacles and plucked them from her face. "Mr. Craven, h-how dare you..." She fumbled to retrieve them. "I... I need those..." Derek held them out of reach as he stared at her uncovered face. This was what she had kept hidden beneath the old-maid disguise... pale, luminous skin, a mouth shaped with surprising lushness, a pert little nose, marked at the delicate bridge where the edge of her spectacles had pressed. Angel-blue eyes, pure and beguiling, surmounted by dark winged brows. She was beautiful. He could have devoured her in a few bites, like a fragrant red apple. He wanted to touch her, take her somewhere and pull her beneath him, as if he could somehow erase a lifetime of sin and shame within the sweetness of her body.

When warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every black man, woman, and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the Clearing--a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of the path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land in the first place. In the heat of every Saturday afternoon, she sat in the clearing while the people waited among the trees. After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, "Let the children come!" and they ran from the trees toward her. "Let your mothers hear you laugh,"she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then "Let the grown men come," she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. "Let your wives and your children see you dance," she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet. Finally she called the women to her. “Cry,” she told them. “For the living and the dead. Just cry.” And without covering their eyes the women let loose. It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart…“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it… No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them! Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it - you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed…What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give leavins instead. No they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it." "This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And oh my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it, and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver - love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet…More than your life-holding womb and your live-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize."" -Baby Suggs

The sole object of revolution was the abolition of senseless suffering. But it had turned out that the removal of this second kind of suffering was only possible at the price of a temporary enormous increase in the sum total of the first. So the question now ran: Was such an operation justified? Obviously it was, if one spoke in the abstract of “mankind”; but, applied to “man” in the singular, to the cipher 2—4, the real human being of bone and flesh and blood and skin, the principle led to absurdity. As a boy, he had believed that in working for the Party he would find an answer to all questions of this sort. The work had lasted forty years, and right at the start he had forgotten the question for whose sake he had embarked on it. Now the forty years were over, and he returned to the boy’s original perplexity. The Party had taken all he had to give and never supplied him with the answer. And neither did the silent partner, whose magic name he had tapped on the wall of the empty cell. He was deaf to direct questions, however urgent and desperate they might be. And yet there were ways of approach to him. Sometimes he would respond unexpectedly to a tune, or even the memory of a tune, or of the folded hands of the Pietà, or of certain scenes of his childhood. As if a tuning-fork had been struck, there would be answering vibrations, and once this had started a state would be produced which the mystics called “ecstasy” and saints “contemplation”; the greatest and soberest of modern psychologists had recognized this state as a fact and called it the “oceanic sense”. And, indeed, one’s personality dissolved as a grain of salt in the sea; but at the same time the infinite sea seemed to be contained in the grain of salt. The grain could no longer be localized in time and space. It was a state in which thought lost its direction and started to circle, like the compass needle at the magnetic pole; until finally it cut loose from its axis and travelled freely in space, like a bunch of light in the night; and until it seemed that all thoughts and all sensations, even pain and joy itself, were only the spectrum lines of the same ray of light, disintegrating in the prisma of consciousness.