Sometimes I Lie

by Alice Feeney

A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too.

“Did you have a nice weekend?” I venture. “I’m not ready to talk to people yet,” she says. I leave her to it.

Nana always said that books made better friends than people anyway.

We are all made of flesh and stars, but we all become dust in the end. Best to shine while you can.

I remember a friend telling me once that robins were the dead revisiting you with a message.

Thought that was cardinals

I don’t hate my parents, I just hate that they stopped loving me.

I’ve never had many friends. The truth is I just don’t like many people, not really.

Once I know someone well enough to see all the cracks and blemishes, I don’t really want to spend time with them anymore.

I love the city at night: you can’t see the dirt or the sorrow in the dark.

Some people are ghosts before they are dead.

We are all just ghosts of the people we hoped that we were and counterfeit replicas of the people we wanted to be.

Dad was at the pub. He has a friend there called Tab who pays for all his drinks and I heard Dad say there was no need to pay him back before we leave.

Fear of the unknown is always greater than fear of the familiar.

People think that good and bad are opposites but they’re wrong, they’re just a mirror image of each other in broken glass.