To live factionless Is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.
I also don’t believe that whatever comes after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions…I don’t believe that what comes after depends on anything I do at all.
I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart.
I watch her blond head until it disappears around the bend, and I feel bare, like there’s nothing left to protect me against pain. Her absence stings worst of all.
I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.
