The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door Quotes

“Autumn stomps around outside the house
like an annoying little sister, tapping
on all the shutters, kicking up the piles
of leaves you rake, pretending to howl
like a wolf. But I'm glad she's here,
so we can cuss at Summer together,
pretending we don't even remember her name.”
― Karen Finneyfrock, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door

“I expect you to vanish
up and up into the tree,
a shake of the branches
and gone like you
had never happened.
But you came down
and handed me a leaf
"from seven limbs up,
already yellow," you said,
and then you walked away
and you were still real.”
― Karen Finneyfrock, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door

“DYING IS NOT HOT
By Celia the Dark

Cool is no longer cool because cool is now hot,
and school isn't school if you are skipping.
Then the neighborhood is school and John,
the creepy dropout guy is teaching.

And it isn't cool because the cool kids stay in school,
where the other cool kids tell them them how hot they are
and they wouldn't want to miss a dance for cutting.

Kids who skip school were never cool or hot but
already dumped into the trashcan with leftover lunch pizza,
bruised into a locker, asking their parents for extra lunch money
so they can smoke and act like they never cared anyway.

And skipping school's not cool but it is school
because that's where they learn what the uncool learn
about life and dying.”
― Karen Finneyfrock, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door

“HERSHEY HIGH AS BODY

The classroom bell like a slow heartbeat
pumps students through the hallways of your veins.
Your cafeteria growls and your doors close
like eyelids at night when you sleep.
What do you dream about, high school?
Do you dream that you are a hospital,
keeping us alive with your textbooks-heart monitors,
your basketball court, an emergency room?
When I fall down in the hallway,
my books spraying over the floor like vomit,
you wish you could pull your motor arms
out of the earth and pick me up.
But you can't help me. No one can.”
― Karen Finneyfrock, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door

“Since Drake told me that day in the wooded lot,
while the leaves agreed with gravity and left the trees,
that he liked boys instead of girls, it's been easier
to love him. Loving him feels like counting or using
the phone or something else that's effortless. I'm like
a leaf with nothing to do but fall.”
― Karen Finneyfrock, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door

“THE DAY I ALMOST KILLED MYSELF

It was afternoon and the razor
reflected the sky like like a mirror. The bath towels
were white like the bathtub and my wrists
were white like the towels.

The bathwater got lukewarm.
The afternoon turned into late
afternoon and I was still pulling ropes of air
into my lungs like a sailor. The razor reflected
the sunset. The bathwater got cold.

The bath towels were white like the bathtub
and my wrists were white like the towels.”
― Karen Finneyfrock, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door