Professional Bone-Haver

[She bites God in the wrist] - stage direction from Antonin Artaud's The Jet of Blood

“I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.” - Jean-Paul Sartre, from Being and Nothingness

“But only a mother can walk

with the weight

of a second beating heart.”

- Ocean Vuong, from Headfirst

“I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?” - Haruki Murakami, from Norwegian Wood

“I am beginning to despair and can see only two choices: either go mad or turn holy” Adélia Prado, from DENOUNCEMENT

“Find god in the line of your jaw and break it” - Kanika Lawton, from ‘Girl as Burning,’ Wildfire Heart

“I killed a plant once because I gave it too much water. Lord, I worry that love is violence” - José Olivarez, from ‘Getting Ready to Say I Love You to My Dad, It Rains,’ Citizen Illegal

“When is a monster not a monster?

Oh, when you love it.

Oh when you used to sing it to sleep."

 - Caitlyn Siehl, from Start Here

“You won't even remember that you're dying.” - I Saw The TV Glow (2024), written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun

“Time wasn't right. It was moving too fast. And then I was 19. And then I was 20. I felt like one of those dolls asleep in the supermarket. Stuffed. And then I was 21. Like chapters skipped over on a DVD. I told myself, "This isn't normal. This isn't normal. This isn't how life is supposed to feel."” - I Saw The TV Glow (2024), written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun

“What if she was right? What if I was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful? Buried alive and suffocating to death on the other side of a television screen?” - I Saw The TV Glow (2024), written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun

“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.” - Flannery O’Connor, from A Temple of the Holy Ghost

“To be alive!

Not just the carcass

But the spark.

That is crudely put, but…

If we’re not supposed

To dance, 

Why all this music?” 

- Gregory Orr, from To Be Alive