you are here because the outside world rejects you

which stained my skin first, the blood or the ink? surely one came before the other. but the story was told before the wound was opened. the assault took place while the storyteller stood by.

You are the puppet master. You are pulling all the strings. And still nothing is going right.

You don't care if this last bullet puts you in the grave, so long as you die free.

Let go of the past, they tell you, and you're trying to do just that. But it follows you everywhere, gnawing at your heels.

I see your ghost in the corner of my eye. In the corner of the room. In the corner of a party. I hear your voice, your song, your deep, dark, wonderful melody repeating in my mind over again and again and again and again I feel so hollow. Let me complete you again. Let me sand our ragged edges down so that we fit together.

And my heart is wreathed in flames, and my soul is wrapped in thorns, but I’ve many miles yet to trek before I dull these horns.

I don’t know what it is. I’m sorry. It comes to me fast and furious and leaves even quicker.

There was no chance to be soft; no time to refine this coal-colored anger into any sort of jewel. You’ll have to make do with it, my love - chip away at it, I don’t care. Melt it down, shatter it into a million pieces. Make it fit into the ring. Make it beautiful.

I’m sorry you were fed that lie, and I’m sorry there’s some truth to it.

I'll never know what it looked like from the outside. But all of a sudden I was coughing up blood, I was bleeding out, I was covered in red, I was stained in sin. And I kept searching for the wound but I couldn't find it. The blood and the wound and the scar - I’ll never know if they were mine. I hope they weren’t yours, darling, but our insides all look the same. That’s enough for now. Will you fetch the peroxide?

no one talks about it enough. everyone talks about it too often. it’s devastating, really.

come close. stay closer.

and you sang it loudly and with pride. you shared it with everyone before you realized it was personal.

What do I care of it? Can it raise me high? Can it make me whole? Can it right my wrongs? Then what, pray tell, should I care of it?

to walk a mile in your shoes, and another, and another, to run a marathon in your shoes, and still not understand.