“I can physically see the effort it takes for him to open his mouth and force out the words. He's spent so much of his life not being seen, not being heard, that he's forgotten how to realize anything he says does hold weight and is important.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“The idea of not being a kid anymore terrifies me. I am an adult and I have been hurled out of the world of boys and girls into the fray of men and women, and expected to function as a grown-up when I never functioned very well as a kid.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“It doesn't matter if it could be worse, because even those people living on the street could still say 'it's not as bad as it could be.' You still feel the pain. It still matters. All this means nothing unless you have people around who understand you. People who get that, sometimes, you're just...really, really fucking sad and it's for no reason at all. Then you get pissed off 'cause you realize you're upset without a good reason, and you feel even worse.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“Once upon a time, I lost everything and I was so alone. The sadness, the hurt, it all seemed so infinite. When you're wandering alone in a storm, you can't see the end, or if there even is one, and how close it might be.
I'm still wandering, but maybe I don't feel so lost now.
I'll keep trying. I promise.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“The ledge isn't even wide enough for my feet to fit on completely. I hang onto the rail tightly and do a Casper does...leaning out slowly over the water. Like this, there is no safety. No rail to catch me if I slip. I'm almost flying. Between me and death, there is...nothing. Nothing in the way but my own decision to hang on.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“Just because someone doesn't act or look unhappy doesn't mean their lives are perfect." He raises his eyebrows. "There's this method of dealing with things that involves keeping your chin up. Knowing whatever crap you're dealing with right now isn't going to last forever. All things pass.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“Except then I wonder what it's like to feel normal because if you take away the things I've felt all my life--the insecurity, the pain, the loneliness, the absolute dissolution of any sane or rational thought during one of my more manic moods and the helplessness when I realize one of said manic moods is creeping up on me (like right now)--what's left after the fact? Emptiness?”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“Of course you are. Emotions are totally irrational half the time." Her ice blue eyes lock onto me. "But you have full control over how you deal with them. Acknowledging that something is irrational and refraining from taking it out on someone is the best thing to do.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“I take medication that makes me feel absolutely nothing. Medication that scoops out my insides and leaves me hollow. Sometimes I take it because that emptiness is the only way to keep my heart from crumbling to pieces.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“Breathe in, breathe out. Over and over again.
Just to prove a broken heart can't really kill you.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“That was offensive on so many levels. You can't just tell someone they look like a Jew.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“In this part of California, there is no fall or spring. Summer drops right into winter, into summer, back and forth. Our idea of autumn is October, where the leaves rapidly go from green to gold to on-the-ground, and it's suddenly freezing.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
“Finding something for a zombie costume in a wardrobe befitting Rainbow Brite isn't easy.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch
Kelley York
Born place: in Sacramento, The United States
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“Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them?”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wrinkle in Time
“I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse.”
― J.D. Salinger, quote from The Catcher in the Rye
“If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!”
― Mark Twain, quote from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
“Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, “Where’s Susie?”
They were silent. Samuel looked at Lindsey.
“Buckley,” my father called from the adjoining room, “come play Monopoly with me.”
My brother had never been invited to play Monopoly. Everyone said he was too young, but this was the magic of Christmas. He rushed into the family room, and my father picked him up and sat him on his lap.
“See this shoe?” my father said.
Buckley nodded his head.
“I want you to listen to everything I say about it, okay?”
“Susie?” my brother asked, somehow connecting the two.
“Yes, I’m going to tell you where Susie is.”
I began to cry up in heaven. What else was there for me to do?
“This shoe was the piece Susie played Monopoly with,” he said. “I play with the car or sometimes the wheelbarrow. Lindsey plays with the iron, and when you mother plays, she likes the cannon.”
“Is that a dog?”
“Yes, that’s a Scottie.”
“Mine!”
“Okay,” my father said. He was patient. He had found a way to explain it. He held his son in his lap, and as he spoke, he felt Buckley’s small body on his knee-the very human, very warm, very alive weight of it. It comforted him. “The Scottie will be your piece from now on. Which piece is Susie’s again?”
“The shoe?” Buckley asked.
“Right, and I’m the car, your sister’s the iron, and your mother is the cannon.”
My brother concentrated very hard.
“Now let’s put all the pieces on the board, okay? You go ahead and do it for me.”
Buckley grabbed a fist of pieces and then another, until all the pieces lay between the Chance and Community Chest cards.
“Let’s say the other pieces are our friends?”
“Like Nate?”
“Right, we’ll make your friend Nate the hat. And the board is the world. Now if I were to tell you that when I rolled the dice, one of the pieces would be taken away, what would that mean?”
“They can’t play anymore?”
“Right.”
“Why?” Buckley asked.
He looked up at my father; my father flinched.
“Why?” my brother asked again.
My father did not want to say “because life is unfair” or “because that’s how it is”. He wanted something neat, something that could explain death to a four-year-old He placed his hand on the small of Buckley’s back.
“Susie is dead,” he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game. “Do you know what that means?”
Buckley reached over with his hand and covered the shoe. He looked up to see if his answer was right.
My father nodded. "You won’t see Susie anymore, honey. None of us will.” My father cried. Buckley looked up into the eyes of our father and did not really understand.
Buckley kept the shoe on his dresser, until one day it wasn't there anymore and no amount of looking for it could turn up.”
― Alice Sebold, quote from The Lovely Bones
“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.”
― George R.R. Martin, quote from A Game of Thrones
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