Excerpts, quotes and verses that I adore:

I was away, I don’t know where, lying on the floor, pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it.

The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising.

Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?

Someone is digging your grave right now.

Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said, so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It’s a fairy tale,

I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

I’ll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.

We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

Is there an acceptable result? Do we mean something when we talk? Is it enough that we are shuddering from the sound?

Is it warm? Does it glide down easily? Do you get notes of despair? How about silliness? Surely you taste the bitterness Of imposter syndrome? There are definitely hints Of earthy optimism …right? Or is that the approval seeking…

Perhaps I’ll never know. But I plan to keep serving.