Bone Gap

Funny how you notice how beautiful things are just when you're about to leave them.

But wasn't that love? Seeing what no one else could?

There will be boys who will tell you you're beautiful, but only a few will see you.

What have you got against people?" Finn hated crowds. Thousands of people bumping and churning. "Too many opinions.

Scarecrows weren't meant to scare the crows, they were meant to scare the corn. It was enough to give a person nightmares. Otherwise, why would so many horror movies have cornfields in them?

Because we don't have your typical gaps around here. Not gaps made of rocks or mountains. We have gaps in the world. In the space of things. So many places to lose yourself, if you believe that they're there. You can slip into the gap and never find your way out. Or maybe you don't want to find your way out.

Thinking that you can't protect the ones you love, you have to hope they're smart enough to save themselves.

I wanted you to choose this. To choose me. But it isn't always possible for two people to want the same thing. I want you, and that will have to be enough for both of us.

She had no intention of breaking anyone's heart, except maybe her own.

When she was little, someone gave her some weird book called The Wife Store. It was about a very lonely man who decided that he wanted to get married. So he went to the wife store, where endless women lined enormous shelves. He picked himself a wife and bought her. She was bagged up and put in a cart. He took her home. After that, the two of them went to the children store to buy a few kids. Petey read this book over and over. Not because she liked it, but because she kept waiting for the story to change, kept waiting for the day she'd turn the page and a woman would get to the husband store. She kept waiting for justice. But, of course, the story never changed. She never got justice. If Petey were keeping one of her lists of the things she hated, she wold have to add: the fact that there was no justice. But The Wife Store was still on her shelf at home, if only to remind her that there were assholes in the world who would write such things, believe such things.

I'm sorry,' Finn mumbled, a global apology for everything he was, and everything he was not, and all the ways he couldn't let it go.

I've never understood why people choose to do the things that are hardest for them.

He was tired of everyone believing they knew everything there was to know about him, as if a person never grew, a person never changed, a person was born a weird and dreamy little kid with too-red lips and stayed that way forever just to keep things simple for everyone else.

Abruptly, she let go of his wrists and allowed him to push her to her knees. She looked up, waited for his smile. And then she punched him in the nuts.

Propose a theory to explain one of there eternal mysteries: Mona Lisa's smile, crop circles, or Velveeta. Here is a theory of love: you find a sister, you gain a brother; you lose a sister, you lose a brother; you lose a cat, you find a girl, you kiss a girl, you find the cat, you hope that there is nothing left to lose, and all there is, is there to find.

The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else does. —ANONYMOUS

You will see the world. You will have love affairs with boys who see past a pretty face. You will be strong. You will call and tell me about it.

Compose a haiku in honor of a person you admire. You are spiky spring, humming summer, wings that beat back ghosts of winter.

In despair, he left that farm and came to Bone Gap when it was a huge expanse of empty fields, drawn here by the grass and the bees and the strange sensation that this was a magical place, that the bones of the world were little looser here, double-jointed, twisting back on themselves, leaving spaces one could slip into and hide.

He preferred her barefoot, he said. She had such lovely feet. Roza didn’t agree. What was lovely about feet that could not take you anywhere? What was lovely about feet that could not run?

Once, a young man lost his wife and went to the Land of Dead to find her. He said his life wasn't worth living without her, and played the loveliest song to prove it. The song was so moving, the Lord of the Dead granted his request, though he had never done it before. He said the young man could go, and his wife would follow him, she would be right behind him. But he couldn't look back at her, he had to trust she was there. But he didn't. He didn't trust, he looked back, and so the woman had to stay. Obviously, he didn't love her the way he said he did. But then, I have found that people never love the way they say they do. They can't. They are just people. Full of lies and sentiment and fear. There is no reason for you to leave here, and no way for you to go. No one will come for you, and even if they did, I am not the sentimental sort.

People say the word 'nice' and they mean 'boring.' A lot of times nice is boring. But that's not what I mean. Roza was nice and not boring at all.

And I was thinking that it was so weird that the world could keep turning. I mean, that honey would still need to be delivered and vegetables would have to be picked and laundry would need to be done when I was so miserable.

Hoping so hard that there was one boy out there who wanted you as much as you wanted him, because you wouldn't know what you would do with yourself if this were not true.

Do you have a girl? Where’s your girl? Where’s your girl?” “She’s her own girl,

Finn fell asleep draped in Kittens and dreamed that the corn walked the earth on skinny white roots, liked to joke with the crows, and wasn't afraid of anything.

I have found that people never love the way they say they do. They can't. They are just people. Full of lies and sentiment and fear.

Finn drifted around, rootless and aimless as dandelion fluff in the wind.

How do you know which one's the queen?' 'She's bigger than the others,' said Mel. 'That doesn't always help,' Petey said, 'I can't always find her.' 'Because she's not that much bigger," said Mel. 'You don't rely on her size as much as you try to use the way she moves. It's hard to describe. It's as if she walks in a more determined way' She pulled off her hat and smoothed her long, straight hair. 'She's got a big job. Babies to bear. Workers to inspire. A colony to manage. She moves like that. Like she's a woman with a plan. The best way to see her is to let your eyes lose their focus, let things get a bit fuzzy on you. See the bees as a whole rather than individuals. When you do that, you understand the entire pattern. The queen's movements will stick out because they're so different from everyone else's.