this time I know I'm fighting

“He knew that I love you also means I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.”

“Take me out tonight, because I want to see people and I want to see lights.”

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

hamlet, bouncing onstage for his fifth unwanted soliloquy of the day:

In case anyone reading my blog is unaware, this is a reference to the Green Day song titled “Wake Me Up When September Ends” a song that Billie Joe Armstrong wrote following the death of his father in September of 1982 when Billie Joe was ten years old. The title of the song references his desire to sleep through September in an effort to get some emotional distance from the death of his father.

I have no words to express what not easily conquered did to me. I really can’t describe it.

“Sergeant Barnes Steve can believe in; other people remember him. There are photographs and news reels and programs on the television about Captain America and his Howling Commandos. There are movies with big Hollywood stars. Sergeant Barnes has his name on a wall of SHIELD and the Pentagon both, fallen soldier, fallen hero. KIA, 1945. Kids write about him in school on Memorial Day. They have their comic books, vintage now and not worth shit because nobody’s buying. Sergeant Barnes, James Buchanan: as much as Captain America, he’s larger than life, a legend that refuses to die just as much as Steve’s hair refuses to go gray. But that Brooklyn kid who came home reeking like cigarettes and the docks, who laughed with his head thrown back, who spiffed himself up in the mirror every Friday night, smelling good and sweet, not a hair out of place — there’s not a soul alive who knows him, no one but Steve anymore with a soft spot left for that hell-raising boy.”

““Did you love him?” Here is the horrible truth of it, cover to cover: for as long as Steve can remember, the entire universe began and ended with James Buchanan Barnes. It spun on the axis of them. But then James Buchanan Barnes fell miles into a frozen ravine, and the universe, in an act of unspeakable cruelty, kept spinning on.”

“You were the best at mythology when we were kids, and I remember one day we were reading about Icarus. And you remember this, I know you do, but I’m going to tell you the story again anyway. Icarus made wings out of wax to escape a prison. But when he was outside for the first time in years there was the sun hanging up in the sky above him and he thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He flew closer and closer and his wings started to melt, but he didn’t give a good goddamn. He kept flying up until he couldn’t fly anymore, and his eyes were probably burning, and his skin was probably burning, but still he didn’t care. And then his wings melted all the way and he fell miles and miles into the ocean and brained himself on a rock, that poor stupid asshole. And I’ll tell you what: I’m no better. I’m no fucking better.”

“This grave is the only thing of Bucky left in this entire world, this grave and the letters Steve has shoved into his back pocket today. There are a million things to say but he can’t think of a single one of them and knows that if he opened his mouth his voice wouldn’t work besides. So instead he kneels in silence and presses his forehead to the frozen headstone and learns the weight of regret.”

“If there’s any Heaven that’s fit for me it’d be all your pale skin under my hands for the rest of eternity. I wouldn’t need anything else. Not food or drink or sleep. Just my hands on you and your sweet love-sounds.”