Kids of Appetite

We are all part of the same story, each of us different chapters. We may not have the power to choose setting or plot, but we can choose what kind of character we want to be.

I think Mad saw in books what I saw in art: the weightless beauty of the universe.

My heart was so full, I thought it might explode into the ether, creating some bizarre new solar system whose inhabitants ate only love, drank only hope, and breathed only joy. What a substantial galaxy that would be.

I used to think love was bound by numbers: first kisses, second dances, infinite heartbreaks. I used to think numbers outlasted the love itself, surviving in the dark corners of the demolished heart. I used to think love was heavy and hard. I don’t think those things anymore.

I ask, “You ever hear that a person has to go through fire to become who they’re meant to be?” Mendes sips her coffee, nods. “Sure.” “I’ve always wanted to be strong, Miss Mendes, I just wish there wasn’t so much fire.

Sinking into fiction: the if-only of if-onlys.

I often thought the most unfair thing about having Moebius wasn’t Moebius at all, but other people’s inability to define me by anything else.

They understood that lasting pain could only be dealt at the root.

Music was more than subjective; it was erratic. It was the ship on the horizon that one sailor saw, the other sailor didn’t.

Sometimes you tell the truth, and things are better for it. Other times truth hangs in the air like a fog, clouding the pretty lies.

I was a little younger than most in my class—Mom said this gave me an edge. I’d finish school sooner, discover the world first, and maybe find whatever great thing I was meant for.

Scroll, scroll, scroll, play—now, to disappear completely into an entirely other world. In that world: every faction left me alone. In that world: I was not one seven-billionth of the planet’s population. In that world: I was one-fourth of the planet’s population: it was Dad, the sopranos, and me. In that world: we soared through the sky and clouds, above it all, not a care in the world, the most miraculous of gaggles, catching the soul of those rare, lovely heart-thinkers. In that world: my wing was mended.

I stare at the many factions of Bundle, and I wonder at the injustice of the world: Vic’s outsides can’t reflect his insides, as much as I want them to. Bundel’s outsides can’t help but reflect his insides, as much as I don’t want them to.