“and if you had a bad week just let me touch your cheek” – maggie rogers, dog years

“i wanna be loved, i wanna be whole again, so tuck my hair behind my ears and touch my soul again” – gang of youths, the heart is a muscle

“in a crowd unfamiliar, i just want to touch your familiar face” – gang of youths, the deepest sighs the frankest shadows

“something gave you the nerve to touch my hand” – taylor swift, it’s nice to have a friend

that screenshot of the goldfinch (2019) where theo and boris touch foreheads in the amsterdam parking lot

“but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist” – richard siken, you are jeff

“don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here?” – ocean vuong, on earth we’re briefly gorgeous

“hold my hand because i might disappear.“ – melina marchetta, on the jellicoe road

pride & prejudice (2005) carriage / hand flex scene

“the longing to touch / be touched. i feel gratitude when i touch someone— as well as affection, etc. the person has allowed me proof that i have a body — and that there are bodies in the world.” – susan sontag, consciousness harnessed to flesh

it (2017) when richie and eddie cling to each other during the clown attack

“i bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries in the universe in someone’s hand.” – benjamin alire sáenz, aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe

eds was a skater boy

me:

Another thing that is great about the book is that unlike so many other stories about prejudice, it doesn’t pretend that all the problems in Derry/America are just the result of a few bad people. The whole point of Derry is that pretty much everyone with the bare exception of the Losers themselves is complicit in the prejudice and horror of the town (even a relatively good person like Richie. Yeah, let’s not be surprised that his…Jim voice…from the book doesn’t show up in any cute Reddie gifsets) and it’s problems are the same as any other small town in America (albeit amplified by an evil shapeshifter).

And yes, it is a story about how family should be the people who love and care for you, and you have no obligation to “love” your abusers just because they’re your parents.* Also, there’s the whole “Taking the piss out of virginity worship via having Alvin Marsh (a character we’re supposed to hate and despise) complain about it”.

So yes, I adore this story and I think you hit the nail on the head as to why it works so well.

See the Losers were all poor children,

But they had a gift to give

They could make you see

How the world could be

In spite of the way that it is.

And here is a riddle to guess if you can,

Sing the beams of the Dark Tower.

What makes a monster and what makes a hero?

Sing the Beams, Beams, Beams, Beams, Beams,

Beams of the Dark Tower!

*Sidebar: Stephen King’s father Donald Edwin King ran off on the family when Stephen was two and he and his older brother David were mostly raised by their mother Ruth and a collection of oddball relatives. Stephen clearly hates his dad a lot, because he literally takes time out in “The Stand” to have Mother Abagail (that novel’s centre of moral wisdom and leader of the forces of good) talk about how she met the guy and found him charming, but superficial (she even suspects “he had gone on to break some white lady’s heart”).

Jack 🤝 James

There was a time I was in love

And all the angels and the doves

Couldn’t make her say

I love you

//

Hello Goodbye, Twas nice to know you

How I find myself without you

That I'll never know