miles from nowhere

With all the lighter fluid, the pule lit up fast, the flash instantly warming my face. I stood there and didn't try to stop her because I loved her too much then. I knew it wasn't good to burn all of Dad's things, but how can you not love someone who lets you see them in all that pain? For the first time, I saw her clearly, as if I were inside a dream of hers watching all her thoughts. She wasn't putting on an act. She wasn't being a nurse. She wasn't being a mother or a wfe or a good Christian. She was just dropping to her knees, inches from teh fire, and sliding her thin arms into the flames. If I screamed I didn't hear it, but I did pull her back, grabbing a fistful of her bathrobe, fulling understanding that I was now playing a part in that dream.

When the firetrucks and the ambulance came, I left her and ran into the house. I locked all the doors, turned off all the lights because we had revealed too much of ourselves. Crouching under a window that faced the yard, I heard the neighbours saying how they'd never seen such a thing. A man asked my mom how she felt.

All she said was, "I'm starving."

~Shelter, Page 5-6

"Skanky freak," she said, and plunked down next to me. She was tall and black and had on a denim mini-skirt that barely reached the tops of her long grasshopper legs. Right away I knew she wasn't a girl, not because of the way she looked but because she acted too much like one, too much drama in her hands and hips.

~Club Orchid, page 36

"Your cigarette smells like chocolate," was what finally came out of my mouth. I hadn't eaten that day and every smell was candy.

~Club Orchid, Page 37

When I got up to throw everything away I noticed on the carpet a greasy black-and-white photo that looked to have ben torn from a yearbook. It was of a boy with a perfect glob Afro, wearing a sweater and tie. An American flag waved in the background, and the name was scratched out in ink. The more I stared at him, the more I saw the likeness. The long cheekbones gave it away. He was maybe in the sixth grade or seventh, his eyes already bored with life. He didn't smile. He looked straight into the camera and maybe years beyond it.

~Club Orchid, Page 40

Outside I stumbled past the ambulance, the fire trucks, the emergency people hovering around the other who was busy wiping down her child. The asphalt was a lace of sparkling diamonds -- beautiful, jagged doily for the crushed picnic basket, the soggy bib, the map stuck to the pavement with sticky blood. I searched for the janitor. I wanted to see where he would go. I even looked for him up in the sky, blinding myself until everything vanished.

~On the Bus, Page 95

currently reading Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun.

stark and pretty.

and i'm pretty damn cold sitting next to this window.