Finding Poetry in Everything

"Someday, I thought, maybe before I’m dead, Mars will have its own space elevator, but until then people have to get down there the old-fashioned way, in space-shuttle mode. It’s like the difference between taking an elevator from the top floor of a building or jumping off with an umbrella and a prayer. Fast and terrifying."

—Rainer Maria Rilke

"Sometimes I don’t know if my life is complicated, or if it’s that I just think too much about things."

"The tech was part of her. It was extra nerves pushing out beyond her skin’s limits. It was enormous, heavy, intricate antlers coming out of her head. The CCPD was way more wired up than any of the malls or shopping centers Nate had set their training exercises in. A thousand network connections were dotted through the place, lamps hanging burning from the antlers, planes in holding patterns shouting, Crash me, crash me! All the phones in the building formed a swirling galaxy of glowing coals in her mind. They waved around in people’s hands, darted about in pockets, lay ignored on desks and in drawers and purses. Each one was a tiny claw clamped on her brain, each sending out a signal, painfully high-pitched. All of it itched in her skin and jerked in her muscles."

"She was a ladder person now, condemned to climb endlessly through the dark until she went mad. Her song was the thud of her shoes on the rungs, the tug of the rope around her waist, the rhythm of her breath. She imagined the ladder was a treadmill, churning slowly beneath her hands and feet, going nowhere. She was trying to remember which circle of Dante’s hell was a ladder in a mineshaft"

"“Cempasúchil flowers. For the dead to find their way back home.” Matt couldn’t help feeling a chill as they trod the delicate petals into the dust."

"underneath Matt felt a hollowness. He understood he was only a photograph of a human, and that meant he wasn’t really important. Photographs could lie forgotten in drawers for years. They could be thrown away. At least once a week Matt dreamed of the dead man in the field. The man’s eyes were open and staring up at the sun. He was terribly, horribly thirsty. Matt could see how dusty his mouth was, but there was no water anywhere, only the dry, rattling poppies."

"She picks up one of the newest butterflies and holds it in her hand. She winds it and lets its wings sputter, noisy clicking. She puts the butterfly back on the ledge and raises her one good hand, lightly pressing it against the window’s splintered glass."