Still Life with Tornado

by A.S. King

But I meant that I’d lost the will to participate in anything. I wanted to be the paper. I wanted to be whiter than white. Blanker than blank.

sixteen is when people stop saying great things about a kid’s drawings and start asking questions like “Where do you want to go to college?”

In eight days of riding around, that’s what I’ve discovered. It’s raining bullshit. Probably all the time.

The absence of violence is not love.

Dad says art is a way of standing still and finding the quiet inside yourself.

I know there is something wrong enough that someone should be taking it seriously. Maybe it starts with me. Maybe I have to take it seriously first.

I can’t figure out how I feel about this. But I know I feel uncomfortable. All the time.

If you plan to get married and have kids, find someone who will never say they are “babysitting” their own kids.

I’m starting to understand that smiling is really just another way of baring one’s teeth.

Mom doesn’t really care about plans because Mom sees people’s plans change all the time at three o’clock in the morning.

What kind of place do we live in where so many people have to live on the street?

Doesn’t make any sense except that people have to show other people their place.

Things happen that aren’t my fault and I say I’m sorry.

That’s because I tell the truth slowly. I think that’s how the truth shows up sometimes. Slowly.

It was something I said. It’s never really something you say. Remember that. But at the time I thought it was something I’d said. At the time, it’s always the fault of the person who isn’t swinging. But it really isn’t.

Teenage girls always have to let go of things. If we bring up anything, people say we’re bitches who can’t just drop it.

This is what abuse looks like. It looks like weeks of waiting for your wife to say Why can’t you vacuum up that sliver of tissue? so you can tell her she’s a bitch.

If parents cared as much about raising kids as the chef cared about making this cake, the world would be a completely different meat grinder.

The absence of violence is not love.

Make a note: You can’t change people with love. It doesn’t work that way.

You have no idea how much I want you to be careful. You have no idea how much I want to save you from what happened to me. Listen closely.

I am left with myself—I can’t get away from her. I tell her: Slow down. I tell her: You can’t listen closely when you’re galloping. I tell her: Maybe if you take off all that armor, you won’t feel so heavy.