PATRICIA MCCORMICK

You show you care, you die.You show you fear, you die.You show nothing, maybe you live.

This affliction--hope--is so cruel and stubborn, I believe it will kill me

Long time I been on my own, but now really I'm alone. I survive the killing, the starving, all the hate of the Khmer Rouge, but I think maybe now I will die of this, of broken heart.

A man who doles out sweets, and slaps, with the same hand.

My son jokes with me that he thinks I Google the word 'sad' to come up with book ideas.

If you look hard enough, chaos turns into order the way letters turn into words.

Trying to remember, I have learned, is like trying to clutch a handful of fog. Trying to forget, like trying to hold back the monsoon.

Instead, we linger over a luxury that costs nothing: Imagining what may be.

Simply to endure is to triumph.

Inside my head I carry: my baby goat, my baby brother, my ama's face, our family's future. My bundle is light. My burden is heavy.

I don't want to go slumming in somebody else's pain just to write a book. I want to go into those darker places to shine a light on that experience and come out with a story that validates the human spirit.

I think young adults get a bad rap for being self-absorbed and self-centered. My experience going around the United States and speaking in schools is that teenagers here are very interested in the fate of their peers around the world.

The power of storytelling is to free us from isolation, shame, and whatever the situation.

My son jokes with me that he thinks I Google the word 'sad' to come up with book ideas.

When I have run out of words to copy, I look out the window at this strange place called India. Inside the train, the people around me are snoring. I don't understand how they can close their eyes when there is so much to see.

Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you don’t expect anything, you don’t get disappointed.

Inside my head I carry: my baby goat, my baby brother, my ama's face, our family's future. My bundle is light. My burden is heavy.

Then I placed the blade next to the skin on my palm. A tingle arched across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spilled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next.

Rochelle," she calls out, still looking at me. "Is there anyone down at the desk? I need something." I'm too startled to move. Is she going to tell on me, get me in trouble? Rochelle's gotten up; she's banging the toilet stall doors open one by one, checking to make sure no one's in there. When the last stall turns up empty, she gives Amanda an annoyed look. "What do you need this time of night?" Amanda smiles at me, then turns to face Rochelle. "A tampon

Simply to endure is to triumph.

I imagine you working on me as an algebra problem, reducing me to fractions, crossing out common denominators, until there's nothing left on the page but a line that says x = whatever it is that is wrong with me.

This affliction--hope--is so cruel and stubborn, I believe it will kill me

If you look hard enough, chaos turns into order the way letters turn into words.

Long time I been on my own, but now really I'm alone. I survive the killing, the starving, all the hate of the Khmer Rouge, but I think maybe now I will die of this, of broken heart.

Instead, we linger over a luxury that costs nothing: Imagining what may be.

Trying to remember, I have learned, is like trying to clutch a handful of fog. Trying to forget, like trying to hold back the monsoon.

You show you care, you die.You show you fear, you die.You show nothing, maybe you live.

A man who doles out sweets, and slaps, with the same hand.

Ama wipes her hands on her apron, looks up at our old roof with new eyes, and lifts the baby from his basket. She twirls him in the air, her skirts flying around her ankles the way the clouds swirl around the mountain cap--her laughter fresh and strange and musical to my ears.

Sometimes when we’re in situations where we feel we’re not in control, we do things, especially things that take a lot of energy, as a way of making ourselves feel we have some power.