Invocations

[invccateurmms]

Even Though You're Gone

    Lyrics from ECHOS' 2018 album

Euphoria ❛ You talk a lot of shit for somebody who's sorry now. ❜ ❛ If I'm a habit that you miss take a hit - I'm euphoria. ❜ ❛ This is everything I wanna say, but can't say yet. ❜ ❛ Everything I wanna change, but can't change. ❜ ❛ You're looking for someone to blame. ❜ ❛ I won't take it. ❜ ❛ I gave you all my blood at the start of this war. ❜ ❛ And even though you're gone, I'm still waiting for your love. ❜ ❛ Thanks for calling me on my birthday to say I was wrong. ❜ ❛ I hope you swallow me. ❜

Graves ❛ Everytime I see you, I light up inside. ❜ ❛ Truth is casting shadows all over me. ❜ ❛ I see the way you walk through your house like a ghost. ❜ ❛ You're fucking empty. ❜ ❛ I could see the grave you built in your sheets. ❜ ❛ I hope you lie in your bed thinking of me. ❜ ❛ There's a hole inside my chest you can't see. ❜ ❛ You're the air inside my lungs I can't keep. ❜ ❛ And I try to tell myself you want me, but I can't keep holding on. ❜ ❛ My head's a burial ground of your memory. ❜ ❛ Exit through my chest with your silhouette, love. ❜ ❛ You can take what's left with your fucking problems. ❜

Guest Room ❛ I know that I'm better off on my own. ❜ ❛ I wish I'd never let you sleep in my room. ❜ ❛ Been thinking about a way that I could take back the night I lost myself in you. ❜ ❛ You know that every time I hear your name I replay your fingertips against my frame. ❜ ❛ Been praying for a way that I could feel saved, I'll never get over you. ❜ ❛ Wish that I had never let you love me. ❜ ❛ I wish you would have slept in the guest room, 'cause maybe I'd still feel alive without you. ❜ ❛ I'm pretty sure that all of this was my fault. ❜ ❛ I'm the one who kissed you first and took my clothes off. ❜ ❛ You know how to make me feel all alone. ❜ ❛ But when I'm underneath your teeth, it feels just like home. ❜ ❛ You said we shouldn't make love. ❜ ❛ You said we shouldn't make love and just fucking found another way to heal. ❜ ❛ You know you drain me of myself till I can't see straight. ❜ ❛ Been thinking 'bout your body in the worst way. ❜ ❛ Wish that I could remove you from my veins, 'cause I'm sick of feeling so betrayed. ❜ ❛ Wish that I had never let you love me, although you said you never did. ❜ ❛ And I thought I'd mean something to you, more than skin to put your skin on. ❜ ❛ I thought I'd mean something to you. ❜

Saints ❛ I'm sorry but your story isn't adding up. ❜ ❛ Think your religion is a lie to keep my mouth shut. ❜ ❛ So I won't testify to crime you're keeping score of. ❜ ❛ Why don't you throw me to the wolves? I though you were one. ❜ ❛ You were standing there like an angry god, counting out my sins just to cross them off. ❜ ❛ Saying that my tongue was too loud to trust, and that my blood couldn't keep you. ❜ ❛ My dear, you're not so innocent. ❜ ❛ You're fooling heaven's gates. ❜ ❛ You won't have to change. ❜ ❛ You're no saint. You're no savior. ❜ ❛ Your revelations don't look nothing like the pictures. ❜ ❛ You read between the lines and don't stick to the scriptures. ❜ ❛ You only follow rules if others follow with you. ❜ ❛ That doesn't sound too holy, only playing the victim. ❜ ❛ You were standing there like an angry god. ❜ ❛ You're fooling heaven's gates so you won't have to change. ❜ ❛ So keep your judgment for someone else, I've had enough. ❜

Shrines ❛ I hope the next one is quick. ❜ ❛ I hope the next one forgives you for yourself. ❜ ❛ I hope the next one forgives you for yourself like I never did. ❜ ❛ I hope the next one you love fills up your eyes to the brim with her lust. ❜

1216 ❛ Welcome to the room I hide in. ❜ ❛ I'd invite you in to stay, but I'm tryna get out of here. ❜ ❛ Get out of here. ❜ ❛ I don't know why I can never leave. ❜ ❛ All that I'm left with are memories. ❜ ❛ I guess I want your ghost as my company. ❜ ❛ This house is full of the things we did. ❜ ❛ I can't let go of the way we left. ❜ ❛ I can't let go of you. ❜ ❛ And now I'm hanging on by a thread. ❜ ❛ To the left and down the hallway. ❜ ❛ This house is full of the things that we did and my bed has known every inch of your skin. ❜

My Blood ❛ I don't know what you want from me. ❜ ❛ You are the shiver in my blood and my bones. ❜ ❛ I'm growing cold. ❜ ❛ You know just how to make me feel alone. ❜ ❛ Will you taste me in all of the emptiness? ❜ ❛ You stole me from myself and I can't breathe. ❜ ❛ You stole me from myself. ❜

Vacant ❛ I've been waiting for you to get your mind right. ❜ ❛ Pour yourself into my skin until I can't seen. ❜ ❛ You've been running from yourself for a while, waiting for the whole thing to catch fire. ❜ ❛ You think that if you burn down, you'll be fine. ❜ ❛ Maybe I'd forget all the times you lied. ❜ ❛ I'm sick of awaiting your vacancy. ❜ ❛ No space in your broken veins left for me. ❜ ❛ I know that you're empty. ❜ ❛ You don't even look the same. ❜ ❛ You drained the light out of yourself. ❜ ❛ You've been running from yourself for a while. ❜

Running ❛ Everything's nice on the outside. ❜ ❛ You run from the feeling. ❜ ❛ It tears you apart. ❜

Revival ❛ I'm afraid that I've grown vacant. ❜ ❛ I don't have time for your equations. ❜ ❛ The way we speak is far from sacred. ❜ ❛ I swear I'll try to save this. ❜ ❛ When you push me like hell, that's when I start to despise myself. ❜ ❛ I think maybe we should find ourselves. ❜ ❛ You never knew if you could feel the way that I do. ❜ ❛ I'm afraid that we won't make it. ❜ ❛ We always run from all our conversations. ❜ ❛ We've both been changing, but now our lives are so damn parallel. ❜

[invccateurmms]

   "Unknown Rooms: A Collection Of Acoustic Songs" (2012)            Lyrics contain some adult subject matter. Change pronouns as need be.

❛ I want flatlands. ❜ ❛ I never cared about money and all its friends. ❜ ❛ I don't want precious stones. ❜ ❛ I never cared about anything you've ever owned. ❜ ❛ I want simplicity. ❜ ❛ I need your arms wrapped hard around me. ❜ ❛ I want open plains and scattered trees. ❜ ❛ I want flower fields. ❜ ❛ I want salty seas. ❜ ❛ I want flatlands, soft and steady breeze bringing scents of lined-up orchard trees dripping heavy with pears and dancing leaves. ❜ ❛ Will you go there with me? ❜ ❛ Are we wasting our time awake here? ❜ ❛ We could be sleeping. ❜ ❛ I'll disappear then, maybe. ❜ ❛ When you're here I know I could never love you. ❜ ❛ I only dream of you after you are gone. ❜ ❛ We don't work the way we used to. ❜ ❛ Say it. I want to hear some truth. ❜ ❛ It was the way we always knew that we never had the clue, that we never had the chance. ❜ ❛ I died with you. ❜ ❛ I wear your clothes to be more like you. ❜ ❛ Your eyes still sparkle in my mind though you are gone. ❜ ❛ Boyfriend, be careful ‘cause women are poisonous animals. ❜ ❛ Boyfriend, oh boyfriend, be careful if you can. ❜ ❛ There's glory coming out. ❜ ❛ There's glory coming out, I can hear it on our mouths. ❜ ❛ There is a stranded heart swimming on careful air. ❜ ❛ 'Cause women are poisonous animals. ❜ ❛ Boyfriend be careful if you can. ❜ ❛ There is a stranger's heart beating inside my chest. ❜ ❛ You call this passion but I call it a cancer. ❜ ❛ Oh the night is wild. ❜ ❛ Oh the night is wild and he is fine. ❜ ❛ And oh our hands were tired, but our work was good. ❜ ❛ Brother, our troubles are locked in each other's arms. ❜ ❛ Did it happen? Is it over? Is it done? ❜ ❛ You'd only answer in questions. ❜ ❛ You knew me well. ❜ ❛ After, did we care for one another or ourselves at? ❜ ❛ I knew him well. ❜ ❛ My bed is so cold without you in it. Tell me something so I can go to sleep. ❛ I remember everything you said. ❜ ❛ I remember everything you said into my head right before you died. ❜ ❛ It was the weekend. It was November. ❜ ❛ I had a strange dream. ❜ ❛ It was my birthday. ❜ ❛ I learned about it from a neighbor. ❜ ❛ You had a bad trip. You crawled right down the hall. ❜ ❛ I ran right over. ❜ ❛ I remember everything you said. ❜ ❛ Everything you've owned is gone. ❜ ❛ Everything you know is wrong. ❜ ❛ Everyone you've loved has left. ❜ ❛ Everything you've touched is dead. ❜ ❛ Listen well, follow the sound. ❜ ❛ Mistakes our fathers made will always be the same that we make. ❜ ❛ Oh, we never learn. ❜ ❛ Hold on to your gold. When you find (her), never let (her) go. ❜ ❛ It's such a lonely world, I found someone who made it all seem right again.  ❜ ❛ But I let fear get in the middle and I ran and I stopped to look back. ❜ ❛ Oh dreamer, I never should have let go of your hands. ❜ ❛ Oh dreamer, I swear I'll regret it for the rest of my days. ❜

[invccateurmms]

   "Ἀποκάλυψις" (2011)          (Apokalypsis) 

Lyrics contain sensitive subject matter.

How can you live with yourself? It's a machine we're up against. Devoid of reason, devoid of sense. It's a system full of regret. We wear it on our shoulders because someday we'll win. We could be two straight lines in a crooked world. We could be two straight lines in a crooked world they've created. It's gonna be a wasteland. It's gonna be a dark and narrow road. It's gonna be a heat you've never known. It's gonna be a gray dawn. Gray like the winter. A thousand years lost and gone. Keeping time with the clicking of your tongue against your teeth. Spelling words you used to know to mean. Such things — keeping time with your twitching fingers worn from the disease like humanity. A cancer. Never sow more than we reap. If you could hear what I hear . . . I was on my way back home when I stumbled upon a forest of purest green. I couldn’t look away. I couldn't look away. There was a shining light so bright, I couldn't look away. In Friedrich's little forest, he's waiting there for us. There was a door to something so pure. A spark was there waiting for someone like me. Someone so far from home. I found a window. Water like crystal, the clearest thing I've seen. When the light in your eyes goes out for the last time... Don't you ever cross that bridge in your mind again.

[invccateurmms]

    "The Grime And The Glow" (2010)           Lyrics contain suggestive material and adult language. 

What's the use in wasting time? What’s the use in wasting time when we've finally found a home? Everybody's feeling fine. Cause I never listen to my own best advice. One thing leads to another. Everybody wants what they can't have. You told me your best advice. You said stop and let it die. Don't you waste it all at once. Cousins of the Antichrist are hiding everywhere. Cause I can't hold on much longer. Can you help me carry the burden? Can you guide me cause you're so strong? I can't see nothing at all. My eyes are burning like the sun. Can you guide me o teacher? Show me the way we'll make it. I was not lying when I said I would try. I was not lying when I said I would let you down. I turned my back on myself. I don't want to hurt anyone else. Take it, kiss it, fix it. Put your fingers in my mouth. Baby, I know only you can. Your words kill me in the best way. You make the whole world disappear. Only with you. You make me crazy. Why does everything gotta be so fucking complicated? You say your life is wild and I think that would be fine. You say your life is wild and I wonder what that's like. I think it would be fun, it would be so fun. When I get up to leave, I hope you'll come after me, but you don't. Why does everything gotta be so fucking beautiful for everyone but me? Why does everything gotta be so fucking perfect for everyone but me? I'm all alone cause nobody wants to sing about death with me. You pronounce yourself a god, then you make it happen. What the fuck is going on — you gotta tell me? I was young. I was scared. I was so high, I didn't care. I was a boy. I was whore. I would take in anything you'd give. Only cared about myself. Fuck you and your ego. All the parts of me that lived inside are drowning in the sea of waking life. They don't know their colors don't belong on the outside. All the things we yelled don't mean a thing. I saw the widow in the window waving down at me. I had a vision of this, but so painless. I opened the book to your birth-page and it said, 'heal your bones.'

[invccateurmms]

❝ Sea water's flowing from the middle of my thighs ❞ ❝ The air is familiar, the sound is not still ❞ ❝ Take all the little things away ❞ ❝ Seek all the dimensions that stray ❞ ❝ Waking up is easy but you're breaking my whole thesis ❞ ❝ I'm in love with truth and sick and tired of this youth ❞ ❝ And thinking that you're falling, but you're stalling when you're holding me ❞ ❝ I'll grow bitters on the borders of your whistling skin ❞ ❝ I want it to be easy but I'm queasy at the thought of it ❞ ❝ I don't need no proof, no lucky charm ❞ ❝ To know it in the same way of that feeling when you're loving me... ❞ ❝ I'll not finish what I done started ❞ ❝ I'm sick of this, you're sick of that. I'm not as dumb as that ❞ ❝ We'll bathe often in light of the moon ❞ ❝ Touch not my bosom for I'll not get far ❞ ❝ Color your cartography in your dreams of me ❞ ❝ Bid you bring me some strong drink ❞ ❝ I came down over the sleepy mountains ❞ ❝ Don't just wander back and forth and leave it ❞ ❝ Oh my dreams come back to me ❞ ❝ I'll sing before you lie down ❞ ❝ Turn the lights down, I wanna be alone ❞ ❝ I needed to take a break ❞ ❝ I lied, now I'm lying awake ❞ ❝ I cried until my body ache ❞ ❝ I couldn't look cause your body, your body would shake ❞ ❝ You feared a lonely death ❞ ❝ I want to know what's your quietest feeling ❞ ❝ You were young and you'd stare with a reverence unimpaired ❞ ❝ You push and you pull ❞ ❝ There was no light and I swear I could see your raring fear ❞ ❝ You push and you pull and you tell yourself no ❞ ❝ Tell me that you want to move me 'round like that ❞ ❝ Tell me I'm the only one and I'll move back ❞ ❝ Watching me is like watching the fire ❞ ❝ That's the only thing that keeps and takes you ❞ ❝ I can feel your knees sinking into the bed ❞ ❝ I had a feeling you broke ❞ ❝ I wasn't thinking about you ❞ ❝ There is a color that shines through your skin like the moon on the wind ❞ ❝ We are stranger than earth with her seasons misled ❞ ❝ There is no lesson in magic ❞ ❝ There were untimely dreams where I knew ❞ ❝ Reckon none of it had come from you ❞ ❝ Pity seek what we might lose but in a week might our weakness elude ❞ ❝ But it wasn't your fault ❞ ❝ Pity seek what we might lose ❞ ❝ I've been watching your kindness keep a lonely company ❞ ❝ Look at the fire and think of me ❞ ❝ I've been watching you creep around my wandering feet, trying for years to flee ❞ ❝ I need not one thing more ❞ ❝ Give back an hungrier stare ❞ ❝ You be the moon, I'll be the earth ❞ ❝ And when we burst, start over, o darling. Begin again ❞ ❝ My moon, o my moon ❞ ❝ I had held it a world away ❞ ❝ Dear lie still along my old web, cursed by your dust filled head ❞ ❝ The clenching of your teeth might help you sleep ❞ ❝ I lost my voice down by the river screaming for courage to take oceans under ❞ ❝ I read your mind and called it a terror ❞ ❝ I'll miss keeping you ❞ ❝ I hope you're sleeping too ❞ ❝ Baby why don't you see ❞ ❝ The moon is dead but she still pulls on me ❞ ❝ Where have I been? Why can't you see me? ❞ ❝ I could give you petty rhymes of worlds that I contrive ❞ ❝ I could taste your vulnerable parts ❞ ❝ Meet me in the blue bed, I'll be drawing out your flaws ❞ ❝ Meet me in the back shed, I'll be hanging up the knives ❞ ❝ What's all the trouble? ❞ ❝ Don't be afraid if it's a little bit close ❞ ❝ I built a kingdom of your throes ❞ ❝ I'm seeing double ❞ ❝ I've been hiding out for days ❞ ❝ I would say wait for the storm ❞ ❝ Feel as lonely as I do ❞

[invccateurmms]

❝ You can't doubt so much. ❞ ❝ I wanted to lie down on the shredded seats and sleep and sleep. ❞ ❝ But I thought of the bones; I could hear them singing. They needed me to write their song. ❞ ❝ Why was fabulousness important? ❞ ❝ We no longer believe in fairy tales. But we will learn to believe in monsters ❞ ❝ I was starting to learn how to forget the things that made me sad. ❞ ❝ What time are we upon and where do I belong? ❞ ❝ Think about the word destroy. Do you know what it is? De-story. Destroy. ❞ ❝ Telling your story is touching. It sets you free. ❞ ❝ It was like when we were little kids and we played games on the ivy-covered hillside in the backyard. ❞ ❝ We were warriors and wizards and angels and high elves and that was our reality. ❞ ❝ You have to make your own family, your own life. ❞ ❝ I didn't tell him that what I was most scared of, most haunted by, was something I didn't understand and could never run away from. It was myself. ❞ ❝ Same old boring boring story America can’t stop telling itself. What is this sicko fascination? ❞ ❝ Maybe he was real. Maybe I'd made him up. Either way, he didn't think I needed him anymore. Maybe he was right. ❞ ❝ You still cry too easily, but without your tears, at least, everything would burn. ❞ ❝ You are Spring in your jeans, in the laughing leaves. I think pearls melted over your bones. ❞ ❝ If they are to prove themselves, they must suffer and die or suffer and survive. ❞ ❝ You'll have to take me to some museums. ❞ ❝ My reading and studying and retellings of old stories didn't do anything except help me think better. ❞ ❝ I was at least thoughtful. Too thoughtful, my friends said. ❞ ❝ And all I thought about was myths and old paintings that made me feel drunk on wine or struck my lightning but didn't matter to most people. ❞ ❝ People worry so much. Just enjoy your body. That you can love. And you're alive. ❞ ❝ If you were sad about something that hadn't happened yet you couldn't be disappointed. ❞ ❝ He might be faithless but I believe in him. ❞ ❝ It’s hard to remember what you fall in love with. Usually it is an expression in the eyes, an exchange, or a gesture or the sound of a voice, a word spoken. ❞ ❝ Sometimes it only takes a few things for someone to attach the way I did — enough hunger, enough loneliness, enough loss, someone who will feed you and touch you and listen. ❞ ❝ Sometimes attachment — call it love — is more complex than that. ❞ ❝ When you are in the state I was in, love can be tied up with other things, like excitement and danger, and the desire to know what really happened, what actually took place. ❞ ❝ Each of us has a family tree full of stories inside of us. ❞ ❝ But death is stronger than that and when you cover your eyes you are the one who can't see the dark. The dark still sees you. ❞ ❝ I thought he had taken my soul. ❞ ❝ What did it mean for us? Because everything I did, everything that happened to me, that was what I asked myself - what does this mean for us. ❞ ❝ The happier you are, the less you need. ❞ ❝ I said I was an English major, that I wanted to write someday, that I read the way other people ate chocolate. ❞ ❝ I was starting to learn how to forget the things that made me sad. It was like a charm you followed step-by-step, collecting and blending the ingredients, placing everything in its proper place. It was the magic of forgetting. ❞ ❝ The lesson of this life is not for me to touch you again. It is to accept who I am now. ❞ ❝ You try to decide if you should take this as a message of endings. Or beginnings. ❞ ❝ Some people think you begin to grow up when you stop trying to figure out who you are. ❞ ❝ I saw my own blood and I thought, how could I live in a world where this exists- where love can become death? ❞ ❝ One of the best things about sex with a Banshee, however, is that she will make her needs known freely. ❞ ❝ If you worry enough you won't have time or energy to see what really is. ❞ ❝ What could I have learned if i didn't live here in this cell? ❞ ❝ Culturally idolized beauty is not only foolproof, but potentially dangerous. ❞ ❝ We no longer believe in fairy tales. But we will learn to believe in monsters. ❞ ❝ Why else were we here except to love? ❞ ❝ But me, maybe I fit in a place like this. Maybe the cold inside of me will seem less cold in this winter. ❞ ❝ Maybe the noises in my head will quiet down in the middle of all the other noises. ❞ ❝ You have to imagine things before you can do them. Stories help us see. ❞ ❝ Like Beauty. But she only pricked her finger. I had a spindle through my heart. ❞

[invccateurmms]

A collection of quotes from Francesca Lia Block’s body of work. Feel free to change pronouns as need be. 

❝ You are in my blood. I cant help it. We can't be anywhere except together. ❞ ❝ Wish on everything. ❞ ❝ Do you know when they say soul-mates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. ‘Soul-mate wanted’. It doesn't mean too much now. ❞ ❝ A soul's wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. ❞ ❝ It must be like all the weddings in the world-gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets, showers of roses. ❞ ❝ But sometimes you have to let that person go. ❞ ❝ Magic can be found in stolen moments. ❞ ❝ I want him to see the flowers in my eyes and hear the songs in my hands. ❞ ❝ I think I missed you before I met you even. ❞ ❝ Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. ❞ ❝ Sometimes you keep falling; you don't catch anything. ❞ ❝ Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. ❞ ❝ Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don't. ❞ ❝ If you want to find the trail, if you want to find yourself, you must explore your dreams alone. ❞ ❝ My mother says that pain is hidden in everyone you see. ❞ ❝ Think of your pain like a big bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. ❞ ❝ Nothing happened. And everything did. ❞ ❝ Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it. ❞ ❝ Love is a dangerous angel. ❞ ❝ Just like any woman. . . we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same. ❞ ❝ You asked me who I thought I was before. I said maybe I was a fish because I love water and you said, you thought a mermaid, maybe. ❞ ❝ But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not running away. ❞ ❝ This was not a fearie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful. ❞ ❝You make me feel like I have wings when you touch me. ❞ ❝ Maybe I would become a mermaid. ❞ ❝ The girl in the mirror wasn't who I wanted to be and her life wasn't the one I wanted to have. ❞ ❝ The wishes might not come true the way you think they will. ❞ ❝ Not everything will be perfect, but love will come because it always does. Because why else would it exist and it will make everything hurt a little less. ❞ ❝ You just have to believe in yourself. ❞ ❝ Just relax and observe because there is pain and that's it mostly and you aren't going to be able to escape no matter what. ❞ ❝ If death is your lover, you don't got to be afraid ever that he will ever leave you. ❞ ❝ I wanted him to hold me, to take care of me. To make the pain dissolve away. I know that this was part of what had ruined everything but I wanted it once more anyway. ❞ ❝ Don't scream or cry, don't run to him and throw yourself at his feet, pleading for him to take you in his arms. ❞ ❝ What happens to the rest of something when you smash its heart? ❞ ❝ Flowers are reincarnation. They come out of the earth of our ashes. Nothing else looks so soul-like. ❞ ❝ I want to be untouchable and beautiful and completely dead inside. ❞ ❝ I could see the veins through your skin like a map to inside you. How could skin be that thin? ❞ ❝ I was so afraid you might drop and break. ❞ ❝ I dreamed you were standing in this dark place and you touched these dead flowers and they lit up like they were electric or something. Electric lilies. Lighting up the Valley. ❞ ❝ I couldn’t go because I started crying the one time I tried. ❞ ❝ At least the girls in stories were alive before they died. ❞ ❝ Think of your pain like a bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. Everyone has one. ❞ ❝ No matter how bad things get, you can always see the beauty in them. The worse things get, the more you have to make yourself see the magic in order to survive. ❞ ❝ I dont know about happily ever after . . . but I know about happily. ❞ ❝ The rain is coming, I promise you. ❞ ❝ I didn’t mean to but your tears will bring life back. ❞ ❝ The true warrior isn't immune to fear. She fights in spite of it. ❞ ❝ I'd sit around dreaming that the boys I saw at shows or at work. ❞ ❝ It's important to tell your story. It's important to listen. ❞ ❝ I dreamed of being a part of the stories—even terrifying one, even horror stories—because at least the girls in stories were alive before they died. ❞ ❝ You are so intense. Like a storm. It's shocking how intense you are. ❞ ❝ Relieved because what I dreaded most in the whole world was going to happen and I wouldn’t have to live with it anymore—the fear. ❞ ❝ There is the relief of finally not being alone and the relief of being alone when no one can take anything away from you. ❞ ❝ You used to guard my sleep like a panther biting back my pain with the edge of your teeth. ❞ ❝ When I woke up you were next to me, damp and matted, your eyes hazy, trying to remember the way I clung to you, how far down we went. ❞ ❝ Was the journey too far? Did we go too far? ❞ ❝ I knew you recognized me. That was the first time I knew I had a heart inside my body. ❞ ❝ Even in darkness your lips taste of sunshine. ❞ ❝ It seems impossible that you can love one person so much, no matter what happens, no matter what they do. ❞ ❝ War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living. ❞ ❝ Non sum qualis eram. I am not what I once was. ❞ ❝ He smells like night-blooming flowers. ❞ ❝ In order to have bliss you have to be able to accept all the parts of the other, all the wildness and the darkness. You have to be able to hold on. ❞ ❝ You're so tiny, like a doll, you look like you might break. ❞ ❝ I wanted him to break me. Part of me did. ❞ ❝ Love is the only thing we have to save us. ❞