Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

by Tahereh Mafi

The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us.

The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.

I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch.

My eyes are 2 windows cracked open by the chaos in this world.

My body is a carnivorous flower, a poisonous houseplant, a loaded gun with a million triggers

He

I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them bleed decimal points in the palm of my hand. I can rip the numbers off a clock and watch the hour hand tick tick tick its final tock just before I fall asleep. I can suffocate seconds just by holding my breath. I’ve been murdering minutes for hours and no one seems to mind.

“Laughter comes from living.” I shrug, try to sound indifferent. “I’ve never really been alive before.”

But I’m an encyclopedia with too many blank pages.

I’m spinning, stranded in the middle of the ocean of my own imagination and I don’t know how to swim.

I watched her count. To 4,572. It took five hours.

I am nothing but a coward.