FUCKINGPASSWORD

sick joke // neck deep

— S.Z. // Excerpt from a book I’ll never write #152

❝  i saw then how i had changed.  ❞ ❝  name one hero who was happy — you can’t.  ❞ ❝  i feel like i could eat the world raw.  ❞ ❝  you are half my soul, as the poets say.  ❞ ❝  i have no need to forgive you. you cannot offend me.  ❞ ❝  i do not fear ridicule. i never have.  ❞ ❝  you have always trusted so easily; you have had so little in your life to fear or suspect.  ❞ ❝  do you hear me? please, say something.  ❞ ❝  your face is like quicksilver, always racing to something new. you unsettle me.  ❞ ❝  you do not give things up so easily now as you once did.  ❞ ❝  now i know how to make you follow me everywhere.  ❞ ❝  i would know your face in dark or disguise. i would know it even in madness.  ❞ ❝  there is no law that gods must be fair.  ❞ ❝  i have never seen anyone fight the way you do.  ❞ ❝  our dead come for their vengeance regardless of witnesses.  ❞ ❝  the sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin.  ❞ ❝  when you die, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with you.  ❞ ❝  you were always better with words than i.  ❞ ❝  i will never leave you. it will be this, always, for as long as you will let me.  ❞ ❝  you smile, and your face is like the sun.  ❞ ❝  i thought you were — something. you do not — you do not move like a human.  ❞ ❝  do you want to walk up to the woods?  ❞ ❝  you can’t be very wounded if you can stand for so long.  ❞ ❝  there are no bargains between lion and men. i will kill you and eat you raw.  ❞ ❝  we are like gods at the dawning of the world.  ❞ ❝  nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity.  ❞ ❝  i yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where i can rest.  ❞ ❝  those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that i felt anything at all.  ❞ ❝  you seem utterly unaware of your effect on the people around you.  ❞ ❝  it was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. it was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came.  ❞ ❝  you are a weapon, a killer. do not forget it.  ❞ ❝  i have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it — in such a way did i learn to live beside the rushing torrent of my doom.  ❞ ❝  if you have to go, you know i will go with you.  ❞ ❝  there is no one like you.  ❞ ❝  we have given each other wounds, but they are not mortal.  ❞ ❝  and perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.  ❞ ❝  who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? it is enough to watch you win.  ❞ ❝  do not let what you have gained this day be so easily lost.  ❞ ❝  you have killed them and taken your vengeance. it is enough.  ❞ ❝  no man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.  ❞ ❝  strange that such a small kindness feels like grace.  ❞ ❝  you can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.  ❞ ❝  i cannot bear to see you grieving.  ❞ ❝  i remember little more than scattered images from my life then.  ❞ ❝  i would recognize you by touch alone, by smell; i would know you blind, by the way your breaths came and your feet struck the earth. i would know you in death, at the end of the world.  ❞ ❝  i see a dozen men here ready to leap on each other’s throats.  ❞ ❝  in my land a bow is marked as the weapon of cowards.  ❞ ❝  you may still make a good person.  ❞ ❝  you don’t bother to threaten me, yet. i should be worth threatening.  ❞ ❝  the memories well up like springwater, faster than i can hold them back.  ❞ ❝  i hoped that you would come.  ❞ ❝  the voices of the dead were said to have the power to make the living mad.  ❞ ❝  i have weathered the anger of gods before.  ❞ ❝  i thought of how many nights i had lain awake in this room, loving you in silence.  ❞ ❝  there is nothing in the world i want more than to know what you had not said.  ❞ ❝  you will never gain fame from your fighting. does this surprise you?  ❞ ❝  my mind is filled with cataclysm and apocalypse: i wish for earthquakes, eruptions, flood. only that seems large enough to hold all of my rage and grief.  ❞ ❝  i will not cry in front of you.  ❞ ❝  listen to me. you go too far in this. i will not be able to protect you.  ❞ ❝  there is no honor in betraying your friends.  ❞ ❝  i’m afraid I have been prompted by a rare stirring of guilt.  ❞ ❝  i promised myself that if i ever saw you again, i would keep my thoughts behind my eyes.  ❞ ❝  i did not want you to see my fear, though normally we kept nothing from each other.  ❞ ❝  gods and mortals never mix happily in our stories.  ❞ ❝  you will be dead soon enough.  ❞ ❝  you are destroying yourself. you will not be loved for this, you will be hated, and cursed.  ❞ ❝  you left yourself today. and now you are returned.  ❞ ❝  you are a better person than i.  ❞ ❝  whatever you do, i shall stand with you, as i always have.  ❞ ❝  you have looked at me a thousand thousand times, but there is something different in this gaze, an intensity i do not know.  ❞ ❝  my life is my reputation. it is all i have.  ❞ ❝  may i give you some advice? if you are truly his friend, you will help him leave this soft heart behind.  ❞ ❝  what are you thinking about?  ❞ ❝  even the boldest of people would whisper a prayer if they brushed against me.  ❞ ❝  the keen edge of my envy was like flint, a spark away from fire.  ❞ ❝  do you think we fight hopeless wars?  ❞ ❝  it is strange, that you would speak against betrayal.  ❞ ❝  if every soldier killed only those who’d personally offended him, we’d have no wars at all.  ❞ ❝  no one has ever tried to take something from me.  ❞ ❝  stay behind me.  ❞ ❝  will you help me put the rest of my armor on?  ❞ ❝  your face is blank and barren, like another language, impenetrable.  ❞ ❝  i am here because i believe that we will win. i am staying until the end.  ❞ ❝  your presence is like a stone in my shoe, impossible to ignore.  ❞ ❝  he is not worthy of you. he never has been.  ❞ ❝  will you tell me who hurt you?  ❞ ❝  it is like a nightmare; i expect, each moment, to wake to relief. but there is no waking.  ❞ ❝  i do not need to prove myself to you. to any of you.  ❞ ❝  you have always thought too much of yourself.  ❞ ❝  some men gain glory after they die, while others fade.  ❞ ❝  even here, behind the darkness of my eyelids, i cannot name the thing i hope for.  ❞ ❝  our joy is so bright we can see nothing else but the other.  ❞ ❝  you have a tender heart. an admirable quality, surely.  ❞ ❝  you are spring, golden and bright. envious death would drink your blood, and grow young again.  ❞ ❝  i will not be the raven on your shoulder all the time, predicting gloom.  ❞ ❝  you look different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight.  ❞ ❝  when there is greed, there is hope.  ❞ ❝  i could have told you more, of the dreams that leave me bleary and bloodshot, the almost-screams that scrape my throat as i swallow them down.  ❞ ❝  you are angry, and not without reason.  ❞ ❝  you feel mislead; you were promised victory.  ❞ ❝  you know, it’s funny; i keep thinking i’ve seen you before.  ❞