exquisite decay.

I want to sequester words, hold them in stress positions, foreignate them, string them up to ripen on vines

To write: to try meticulously to retain something, to cause something to survive: to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows, to leave somewhere a furrow, a trace, a mark or a few signs.

I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.

Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.

the secret history is snowy towns, classical books, college parties, running through the woods, ratty sweaters, skewed glasses

Today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning: I felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.

…my love’s a fire, an altar, an ember. I turn into smoke.