Stacie Evans

“Have you ever had so much to say that your mouth closed up tight struggling to harness the nuclear force coalescing within your words? Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside you that you didn’t dare let them escape in case they blew you wide open? Have you ever been so angry that you couldn’t look in the mirror for fear of finding the face of evil glaring back at you?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Crank

“Memory is a tenuous thing. . . .

flickering glimpses, blue
and white, like ancient,
decomposing 16mm film.
Happiness escapes
me there, where faces
are vague and yesterday
seems to come tied
up in ribbons of pain.

Happiness? I look for it intead
in today, where memory
is something I can still
touch, still rely on.
I find it in the smiles
of new friends, the hope
blossoming inside.

My happiest memories
have no place in the
past; they are those
I have yet to create.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse

“Too much to take in, too much to purge. Why must every memory, once sweet, dead end in such ugliness?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse

“One foot in front of the other, counting tiles on the floor so I don't have to focus the blur of painted smiles, fake faces.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse