Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

by Tahereh Mafi

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.

I wonder about how they’re always falling down, forgetting their parachutes as they tumble out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors. I am a raindrop.

Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I’m not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything

at all. Sometimes I’m so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I’m almost certain I’m going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me. It doesn’t seem impossible. I’ve been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.

The promise of something grander, something greater, some reason for the madness building in my bones, some explanation for my inability to do anything without ruining everything.

I am not insane.

Find me a cure for these tears, I’d really like to exhale for the first time in my life.