Starling House

by Alix E. Harrow

You’re never going to be very popular when you wear clothes from the First Christian donation box and shoplift your school supplies, no matter how slick your smile is; the other kids sensed the hunger behind the smile and avoided me out of an animal certainty that, if we were all shipwrecked together, I’d be found six weeks later picking my teeth with their bones.

there were sharp teeth behind every smile, and bare bones waiting beneath the pretty skin of the world.

People like me have to make two lists: what they need and what they want. You keep the first list short, if you’re smart, and you burn the second one.

I figure dreams are like stray cats, which will go away if I quit feeding them.

Starling House makes me think of an underfed pet or a broken doll, a thing unloved by the person who promised to love it best.

I think dizzily that I know exactly why Icarus flew so high: when you’ve spent too long in the dark, you’ll melt your own wings just to feel the sun on your skin.

He looks like a boy who wanted to grow flowers but was handed a sword instead.

lies turn into history, if you tell them enough times.