jackknife quality.

la gaudiére      —        n.     the   glint   of goodness   inside  people,  which you  can  only find  by   sloshing   them    back & forth    in  your  mind  until everything   dark   & gray   &  common   falls away,  leaving  behind  a constellation  at  the  bottom   of the pan   —   a  rare element  trapped in  exposed bedrock,  washed  there  by  a  storm  somewhere  upstream.

quotes are all taken from various poems out of richard siken’s poetry book crush.  feel free to change pronouns/etc if needed.

❝  tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  ❞

❝  tell me we’ll never get used to it.  ❞

❝  there are so many things i’m not allowed to tell you.  ❞

❝  i swallow your heart and it crawls right out of my mouth.  ❞

❝  i want it back now, baby. i want it back.  ❞

❝  i’m sorry. we know how it works. the world is no longer mysterious.  ❞

❝  that’s a nice touch.  ❞

❝  i like him and i want to be like him.  ❞

❝  i’m sure you remember, i was on the phone with you, sweetheart.  ❞

❝  history repeats itself.  ❞

❝  there are many names in history, but none of them are ours.  ❞

❝  you could drown in those eyes.  ❞

❝  but damn if there isn’t anything sexier than a slender boy with a handgun, a fast car, a bottle of pills.  ❞

❝  sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.  ❞

❝  i couldn’t get the boy to kill me, but i wore his jacket for the longest time.  ❞

❝  you wanted happiness, i can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.  ❞

❝  there is no way to make this story interesting.  ❞

❝  i want to tell you this story without having to confess anything, without having to say that i ran out into the street to prove something.  ❞

❝  tell me we’re dead and i’ll love you even more.  ❞

❝  you will be alone always and then you will die.  ❞

❝  i’m sorry i came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.  ❞

❝  who am i? i’m just a writer. i write things down.  ❞

❝  i take it back.  ❞

❝  here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.  ❞

❝  you still get to be the hero.  ❞

❝  what more do you want?  ❞

❝  love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. it’s like a religion. it’s terrifying.  ❞

❝  no one will ever want to sleep with you.  ❞

❝  you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things i want to ask you.  ❞

❝  you had not expected this.  ❞

❝  walk a mile in my shoes.  ❞

❝  a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still left with the river.  ❞

❝  you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore.  ❞

❝  hush, my sweet. these tornadoes are for you.  ❞

❝  that sounds overly valorous.  ❞

❝  do you love yourself?  ❞

❝  i don’t have to answer that.  ❞

❝  you wanted more.  ❞

❝  i had a dream about you.  ❞

❝  there’s nowhere to go. there’s nowhere to go.  ❞

❝  in these dreams it’s always you: the boy in the sweatshirt, the boy on the bridge, the boy who always keeps me from jumping off the bridge.  ❞

❝  will you love me even more when i’m dead?  ❞

❝  you didn’t show up. i kept waiting.  ❞

❝  i swallowed crushed ice pretending it was glass and you’re dead.  ❞

❝  i don’t really blame you for being dead but you can’t have your sweater back.  ❞

❝  you can sleep now, you said. you can sleep now. you said that. i had a dream where you said that. thanks for saying that. you weren’t supposed to.  ❞

❝  hello darling, welcome home.  ❞

❝  please keep him safe.  ❞

❝  i just don’t want to die anymore.  ❞

❝  you want to die for love, you always have.  ❞

❝  you didn’t think you’d feel this way.  ❞

❝  you saved my life. i owe you, i owe you everything.  ❞

❝  please, just for one night, will you lie down next to me, we can leave our clothes on, we can stay all buttoned up.  ❞

❝  you’re all i ever wanted and worth dying for, too.  ❞

❝  drive into that tree, drive off the embankment. ______, make something happen.  ❞

❝  we are not dirty.  ❞

❝  you keep singing along to that song i hate. stop singing.  ❞

❝  here is the sink to wash away the blood.  ❞

❝  this is not harmless. you are not breathing.  ❞