'FRIDAY: The worst day of the week. I wake up and know what today is about. My skin feels tight around my bones. Balloon air takes up all the room inside me, making it hard to swallow, skimming just the top of each breath. There is no gap between times of fear—fear is all there is. I feel the cracks and shadow places between the bones of the world, which is stripped of rules I can depend on. I feel things I know I shouldn’t, like the spinning of the earth'.

Amanda Stern