The Butterfly Garden

Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.

What choice are you making, Desmond?” “I don’t think I’m making any choice right now.” “Then you’re automatically making the wrong ones.” He straightened, mouth open to protest, but I held up my hand. “Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact. No one actually gets to live their lives that way.

I think a trauma doesn’t stop just because you’ve been rescued.

My secrets are old friends; I would feel like a poor friend if I abandoned them now.

Listen to what isn’t being said.

Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact.

Beauty loses its meaning when you’re surrounded by too much of it.

Some wanted the freedom to be anyone they wanted, some of us wanted the freedom to be left alone.

Sometimes you can look at a wedding and realize with a certain sense of resignation that any children produced in that marriage will inevitably be fucked up and fucked over. It’s a fact, not a sense of foreboding so much as a grim acceptance that these two people should not—but definitely will—reproduce.

And that stupid little girl stood in the winter and kept lighting matches to catch glimpses of families that weren’t—could never be—hers and froze to death in those harsh moments of reality between matches, because even though matches can burn, they’re light, not heat.

You seem to have this strange image of me as a lost child, like I’ve just been thrown on the side of the road like garbage, or roadkill, but kids like me? We’re not lost. We may be the only ones who never are. We always know exactly where we are and where we can go. And where we can’t.

The trouble with sociopaths, really, is that you never know where they draw their boundaries.

If you don’t look at the bad thing, the bad thing can’t see you, right?

Let's call me a shadow child, overlooked rather than broken. I'm the teddy bear gathering dust bunnies under the bed, not the one-legged soldier.

I’m not a fake person; I’m carefully and genuinely handcrafted.

If you’ve seen enough, you just look older, no matter what the rest of your face looks like.

The gifts we give say as much about us as the gifts we get and keep,

So not only was I self-sufficient, I came to have a pretty low opinion of most people’s intelligence.

Taki and Karen had it, their daughter and her wife had it. But each time I saw it, I knew I was in the presence of something extraordinary, something that not everyone found or was capable of recognizing and sustaining.

In terror she spoke, letting sink her wings till they trailed in the dust—in agony sobbed, letting sink her plumes till they trailed in the dust—till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. But my wings couldn’t move and I couldn’t fly, and I couldn’t even cry. All that was left to me was the terror and the agony and the sorrow.

Like beauty, desperation and fear were as common as breathing.

My name is Rachel,” she whispered against my skin. “Rachel Young. Will you remember?

At night, the creature that was the Garden peeled back its synthetic skin to show the skeleton beneath.

If you expect to be overlooked or forgotten, you’re always at least a little surprised when someone remembers you. You’re always outside understanding those strange creatures who actually expect people to remember and come back.

New York has so much history, but everyone in it just wants to know about the future.

I knew better than that. Like throwing away well-intentioned phone numbers, I knew better than to ask for things I clearly couldn’t have. “Can this one camera be disabled without another one going up in its place?” I asked promptly, and watched shock pass across his shadowed face. “No cameras, no mics?” "That’s it?” “It would be nice to have one place that’s genuinely private,” I explained with a shrug. It almost felt strange to have my hair shifting across my back and shoulders with the gesture. “You can see us everywhere else we go, even watch us on the toilet if you had a wish to. Having just a single place devoid of cameras would be beneficial. A mental-health exercise, in a way.” He watched me for a long time before answering. “Something that benefits all of you.” “Yes.” “I tell you to ask for anything, and you ask for something that benefits all of you.” “It benefits me too.” He laughed again and reached for me, pulling me against his chest so he could kiss me. His hands moved over the fastenings of my dress, and as he lowered me to the mist-damp stone, I closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift off to Annabel Lee and her grave in the kingdom by the sea. I didn’t think angels would ever be jealous of me.

and I thought how fucking unfair it was that he made us butterflies, of all things. Real butterflies could fly away, out of reach. The Gardener’s Butterflies could only ever fall, and that but rarely.

Someone is just dead!” said the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God. And that stupid little girl stood in the winter and kept lighting matches to catch glimpses of families that weren’t—could never be—hers and froze to death in those harsh moments of reality between matches, because even though matches can burn, they’re light, not heat.

What wasn’t known was created, what wasn’t created eventually ceased to matter.

Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact. No one actually gets to live their lives that way.