Ignite Me

Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures. No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.

Why do you call her 'love'?" James asks. "I've heard you say that before, too. A lot. Are you in love with her? I think Adam's in love with her. Kenji's not in love with her, though. I already asked him." Warner blinks at him. "Well?" James asks. "Well what?" "Are you in love with her?" "Are you in love with her?" "What?" James blushes. "No. She's like a million years older than me." "Would anyone else like to take over this conversation?" Warner asks, looking around the group.

And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.

It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.

Are you out of your goddamn mind? You think we can take on two hundred soldiers? I know I am an extremely attractive man, J, but I am not Bruce Lee.” “Who’s Bruce Lee?” “Who’s Bruce Lee?” Kenji asks, horrified. “Oh my God. We can’t even be friends anymore.” “Why? Was he a friend of yours?” “You know what,” he says, “just stop. Just—I can’t even talk to you right now.

The tattoo is just setting below his hp bone. H e l l i s e m p t y a n d a l l t h e d e v i l s a r e h e r e I kiss my way across the words. Kissing away the devils. Kissing away the pain.

Aaron Warner Anderson, chief commander and regent of Sector 45, son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment. He has a soft spot for fashion.

It's not charity," I snap. "He cares about me--and I care about him!" Warner nods, unimpressed. "You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.

I like the way I feel about myself when I'm with him." I say quietly. "Warner thinks I'm strong and smart and capable and he actually values my opinion. He makes me feel like his equal--like I can accomplish just as much as he can, and more. And if I do something incredible, he's not even surprised. He expects it. He doesn't treat me like I'm some fragile little girl who needs to be protected all the time.

His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think," he says, "my heart is going to explode," and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever. Because this. This is everything.

I am going to MURDER YOU—” “No,” he says, pointing at me as he shifts backward again. “Bad Juliette. You don’t like to kill people, remember? You’re against that, remember? You like to talk about feelings and rainbows—

I’m not sure. But there’s something about the darkness, the stillness of this hour, I think, that creates a language of its own. There’s a strange kind of freedom in the dark; a terrifying vulnerability we allow ourselves at exactly the wrong moment, tricked by the darkness into thinking it will keep our secrets. We forget that the blackness is not a blanket; we forget that the sun will soon rise. But in the moment, at least, we feel brave enough to say things we’d never say in the light.

Don't do that," he says. "Don't ask me questions you already know the answers to. Twice I've laid myself bare to you and all it's gotten me was a bullet wound and a broken heart. Don't torture me," he says, meeting my eyes again. "It's a cruel thing to do, even to someone like me.

Hey, um, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for a friend of mine," he says. "Have you seen her? She's a tiny little thing, cries a lot, spends too much time with her feelings-" "Shut up, Kenji!" "Oh wait!" he says. "It is you.

Words are like seeds, I think, planted into our hearts at a tender age. They take root in us as we grow, settling deep into our souls. The good words plant well. They flourish and find homes in our hearts. They build trunks around our spines, steadying us when we’re feeling most flimsy; planting our feet firmly when we’re feeling most unsure. But the bad words grow poorly. Our trunks infest and spoil until we are hollow and housing the interests of others and not our own. We are forced to eat the fruit those words have borne, held hostage by the branches growing arms around our necks, suffocating us to death, one word at a time.

Come back to life, love. I'll be here when you wake up.

Water that never moves." I say to him. "Its fine for a little while. You can drink from it and it'll sustain you. But if it sits too long it goes bad. It grows stale. It becomes toxic." I shake my head. "I need waves. I need waterfalls. I want rushing currents.

And if you insist on continuing to make assumptions about my character, I’ll advise you only this: assume you will always be wrong.

I can do anything I want. Be with anyone I want. And it'll be my choice.

Can you hear my heart? I want to ask him. I want you to make a list of all your favorite things, and I want to be on it.

You think Warner is sexy?" ... "I do like his face.

For so many years I lived in constant terror of myself. Doubt had married my fear and moved into my mind, where it built castles and ruled kingdoms and reigned over me, bowing my will to its whispers until I was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too terrified to disagree. I had been shackled, a prisoner in my own mind. But finally, finally, I have learned to break free.

So that's it?" Kenji says. "You just like him for his personality, huh?" "What?" "All of this," Kenji says, waving a hand in the air, "has nothing to do with him being all sexy and shit and him being able to touch you all the time?" "You think Warner is sexy?" "That is not what I said.

Have you ever been in love?" I ask, turning on my side to look at him. He stares up at the sky. Blinks a few times. "Nope." I roll back, disappointed. "Oh." "This is so depressing." Kenji says. "Yeah" "We suck." "Yeah.

I'm not trying to fix you; I don't think you need to be fixed. I'm not trying to turn you into someone else. I only want you to be who you already are. Because I think I know the real you. I think I've seen him." Warner says nothing, his chest rising and falling. "I don't care what anyone else says about you," I tell him. "I think you're a good person.

In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything.

I do want you," I say to him, my voice shaking. "I want you so much it scares me.

Three forty-five-pound plates on each side of what Kenji told me is an Olympic bar, which weighs an additional forty-five pounds. I can't stop staring. I don't think that I've ever been more attracted to him in all the time I've known him." "So this gets you going, huh?" ... "I've never seen him in sweatpants before..." ... "I bet you've seen him in a lot less.

I promise myself then, in that moment, that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he's given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.