page ripped out

if the house is a heart, you’re the hook cut through it.

you’re the only person i could get through to on my cell.

i knew it was you, but it was like looking in a mirror, too; i could never quite be sure which one of us was speaking.

i feel strange. not completely real. disconnected from my body, disconnected from my thoughts.

if the house is a heart, i’m its blood.

once upon a time we were strangers. we’d never even heard one another’s names. now we’re something else.

maybe i should be more afraid. maybe.

do you think there’s a process that a place goes through to become holy? a sanctifying alteration? if there is, i think it’s happening here.

if you don’t come with me now, i can’t protect you.

you’ll die alone.

sometimes, when i look at you, i think that i am looking at a piece of my own soul.

i want to unpick you like stitches, to see what makes you run — but i won’t.

this is what they say: it is not uncommon for us to want to eat what we love.

my mother taught me many things but she did not teach me this.

where does it come from, the thread that ties us together?

you laughed and i fell in love with you there.

i love you, stone in my shoe. i love only you. only you. only ever you.

you were a person, a true thing, not a figment or a fragment or a piece of history.

i took a shower to wash all that red paint off me, and then i called you.

she didn’t deserve to die alone.

everyone in the whole world should be bowing their heads. don’t they understand what’s happened?

time is strange in hospitals. reality is strange.

you can’t get rid of me.

i miss you. it feels like a piece of me has been torn out. it hurts. it’s physical.

there are so many moments when the world rips out from under you.

i know it’s late. i hope i didn’t… i had a nightmare.

is this survivor’s guilt?

every time i dream about you, you’re leading me somewhere.

theseus makes his way back to safety and says hey, ariadne, come with me, i owe you big time. and this is what they call love.

i’m not ariadne, i’m not theseus, i’m not the minotaur. if i’m anyone in this story, i’m the ball of twine.

“Coincidence and fate figure largely in our lives.”

“How’s _____?”

“I need to brush my teeth.”

“Black as midnight on a moonless night.”

“I have no idea where this will lead us. But I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.”

“Secrets are dangerous things.”

“There’s nothing quite like urinating in the open air.”

“Every day, once a day, give yourself a present.”

“They’ve got a cherry pie there that’ll kill you.”

“I only have time for coffee.”

“I never liked the name _____. Always wish I had been born an Apache and named Ten Sticks. Why, I do not know.”

“Now I’m going to go down and get us two malts and some fries downstairs. Then I want you to tell me all your troubles.”

“I’m holding in my hands a small box of chocolate bunnies.”

“I have become deeply moved by the plight of the Tibetan people.”

“Surprisingly, I met three people on the dance floor who were also Eagle Scouts. One of them still seemed particularly interested in the tying and use of knots.”

“I am honoured beyond my ability to express myself.”

“Give me a doughnut.”

“What kind of fantastic trees have you got growing around here?”

“Are you still seeing this… Dick?”

“The feel of leather against skin is a surprisingly sensual experience.”

“File it under ‘F,’ for ‘forget it.’”

“Surefire cure for a hangover. You take a glass of nearly frozen, unstrained tomato juice. You plop a couple of oysters in there and you drink it down. Breathe deeply. Next you take a mound, and I mean a mound, of sweetbreads sautéed with some Canadian bacon and chestnuts. Finally, some biscuits, big biscuits, smothered in gravy. Now here’s where it gets tricky. You’re going to need some anchovies. You take…”

*thumbs up*

“I’m talking about seeing beyond fear. About looking at the world with love.”

“I could bury you in a building so deep in Washington, you’d never see the sun.”

“I work for you now. You say drink coffee, I’ll drink coffee.”

“I believe I was visited by a giant last night. Twice.”

“Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham.”

“Think I have made a terrible mistake going to college. Have decided to become a shepherd and spend my days tending to flocks of goats.”

“You know why I’m whittling?”

“Is that bag smiling?”

“Gentlemen, when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object in inquiry we must always pay strict attention.”

“Never drink coffee that has been anywhere near a fish.”

“Without a doubt, I am a-okay.”

“All things considered, being shot is not as bad as I always thought it might be.”

“Urination lasted a full two minutes. Can safely say that they were the two most satisfying minutes I have ever spent in my short life.”

“Find the attraction of academics pales in comparison to sex, particularly when one is not getting any.”

“You know, this is—excuse me—a damn fine cup of coffee.”

“I would highly recommend it as a substitute for sex.”

“I believe for the first time in my life I know what love is, because I have lost it.”

“_____, you’re alright.”

“Sleep deprivation is a one-way ticket to temporary psychosis.”

“I became a public health threat at about the forty-four-hour mark of sleep deprivation.”

“Could you call a doctor?”

“This must be where pies go when they die.”

“My symptoms suggest the onset of malaria, but I’ve never felt better in my life.”

“Now I find myself in need of something new, which, for lack of a better word, we shall call ‘magic.’”

“It’s not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind.”

“Well, I’m sure he meant to do that.”