‘ do not choose sides yet. it is still to your advantage to remain impartial. ’
‘ unfortunately for me, it doesn’t always come down to fisticuffs. ’
‘ if only i could cut him open and peel him back and crawl inside this second skin, then I could relive that last mile again: reborn, wild-eyed, free. ’
‘ it could have been so beautiful—you scout out the road ahead and i will watch your back, how it was and how it will be, memory and fantasy. ’
‘ i’m tired of looking at the back of your head. ’
‘ they are the same and they are not the same. they are the same and they hate each other for it. ’
‘ o, how he loves you, darling boy. ’
‘ he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him. ’
‘ look—it looks like a star. ’
‘ you can tell that they have forgotten about god, and they are very hungry. ’
‘ open the door. ’
‘ can the heart escape? does love even care? ’
‘ we believe in you. ’
‘ there is no danger. ’
‘ who do you love? ’
‘ take the light inside you like a blessing, like a knee in the chest, holding onto it and not letting git go. now let it go. ’
‘ i will come back from the dead for you. ’
‘ we used to dream about them. we used to do a lot of things. ’
‘ he was not dead yet, not exactly. ’
‘ i’ll call you darling, hold you tight. ’
‘ all night i stretched my arms across you, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone: please keep him safe. ’
‘ yes, i do believe your mouth is heaven, your kisses falling over me like stars. ’
‘ we laugh, and it pits the world against us. we laugh, and we’ve got nothing left to lose. ’
‘ here is my hand, my heart, my throat, my wrist. here are the illuminated cities at the center of me. ’
‘ I had four dreams in a row where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire. ’
‘ i woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made any sense, anything. ’
‘ tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again. ’
‘ the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple to slice into pieces. ’
‘ tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. ’
‘ tonight, by the freeway, a man eating fruit pie with a buckknife carved the likeness of his lover’s face into the motel wall. I like him and I want to be like him, my hands no longer an afterthought. ’
‘ there are many names in history, but none of them are ours. ’
‘ he had green eyes, so i wanted to sleep with him—green eyes flecked with yellow, dried leaves on the surface of a pool—you could drown in those eyes, i said. ’
‘ i wanted to be wanted. ’
‘ but damn if there isn’t anything sexier than a slender boy with a handgun, a fast car, and a bottle of pills. ’
‘ try explaining a life bundled with episodes of this—swallowing mud, swallowing glass, the smell of blood on the first four knuckles. ’
‘ sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine. ’