’ i think the whole world is within you. ’
’ trauma is insidious. it sticks like a shadow, like mortar; the only thing holding our disparate shards together in the shape of a person. ’
’ what are we, if not the echoes of insults and disappointments, the ghosts of the people our parents used to be? ’
’ what are we if not the space in the skyline where something used to stand? the afterimage of a flashbulb lit in the quiet moment before roaring tragedy? ’
’ i watch you standing in the sunlight laughing, harsh and beautiful, something more than our parents or this nation could ever hope or deserve to behold. ’
’ you’re the one lucky creature in this world of ashes. ’
’ i feel myself decaying with every wasted minute. ’
’ i think if you took my chest and split me open, you’d find soft black rot where my ambition used to be. ’
’ if i cannot be happy, let me be free. if i cannot be free, let me be mad. ’
’ i think of nothing but poems, and all the poems come from you. ’
’ i’d ask to run away with you, but i never learned how to drive. ’
’ i’d apologize for staring at you, but you captivate me as the night sky. ’
’ when i was a child, i’d tilt my head back far enough that the only thing i could see was that stretching firmament, thinking: i might fall into those galaxies. ’
’ you are allowed to be angry at those who hurt you—you are allowed to feel rage over what was done to you—you are allowed— ’
‘ we burn, and our blaze tears away the veil of ignorance. ’
‘ faith lies as charred or as changed as the city skyline. ’
‘ we break out of rubble, claw our way to sunlight, wipe the dust from each other’s faces with hands sick of fighting and digging. ’
‘ we will tear down their walls and build our homes atop the wreckage. ’
’ i marvel at how you might lament a life like this. ’
’ you may whisper to yourself: do i dare disturb the universe? and i will twine my hand in yours and say: you have—you do— ’
’ you are a fool, perhaps. but so are all—men, women, everyone. ’
‘ we measure our pride with watch-chains; measure our hearts with half-torn dancing-slippers worn on walks over rough streets, places they were never made to tread; measure ourselves with love-poems. ’
‘ you are the might-have-been story of a boy grown into a man grown into the best mind of his generation. ’
‘ you are the best mind of your generation which, coming upon the overwhelming question, turns it over like a diamond and, finding it unanswerable, sets it in a ring upon my finger. ’
‘ perhaps it was not worth it, after all. or perhaps it is no great matter. ’
‘ if i put my foot to the floor or take the turn just right, the horizon will swallow this ought-to-be-ghost town. ’
‘ he prayed at the altar of machinery until the factory god gasped its dying breath. ’
‘ i stand in the light of uncountable divinities and by them chart my westward course. ’
‘ i was always more than the sacrificial lamb of the american dream. ’
‘ in my memories you are gold-filigreed. ’
‘ you became god when you breathed your first tale. ’
‘ some things are best learned from the passenger’s seat. ’
‘ amid the ache of beauty, and amid my wonder-love, i forgot i am a sinner. ’
‘ i forgot that we ought to be bound for ruin, i forgot every cruel thing the world has ever flung our way, because the dawn made you holy in your sleep. ’
‘ when i am bound for eternity, will you mourn for me? ’
‘ i was only worth loving in your darkest hour, is that it? ’
‘ i am a siren call, not sustenance: there is no meat left in me to feast on. ’
‘ somewhere in me there is a living girl/boy/person, locked in the casket of my heart for safekeeping, buried beneath the silt of our solitude. it has been piled on for so long that i cannot find her/him/them when i try. i cannot even remember laying her/him/them to rest. ’
‘ you told me you loved me and looked at me like i was holy. ’
‘ you should have known i loved you when i asked you to take a road trip with me. ’
‘ i love you, and because i love you i will put aside my relentless terror. ’
‘ if i am your moon, do not take the sky from me. if i am your heart, do not take the cavity in which i beat ceaselessly, deaf and blind to all but you. ’
‘ do not tear me from your chest while you still live in mine, so close that your breath is my breath and your words are my words. ’
‘ who am i that you should love me? ’
‘ i did not know with what words i spoke, what language, what voice; i knew only that i loved you, as soft and ever-present as breathing. ’
‘ if you opened your mouth, the true name of god would spill from your lips. ’
