emotional warfare

she peels an orange and gives one half to me. if i could wear it like a friendship bracelet, i would. instead i swallow it section by section and tell myself it means even more this way. to chew and to swallow in silence here with her. to taste the same thing in the same moment.

i wanted to forget him, and yet it seemed i thought of him always. it was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. and sometimes i found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice was still there.

there is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong, but you continue. sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens.

...just to live quietly and then be buried in the earth. what else is life for? but even that seems so beyond me that it's like a dream, completely unrelated to anything in reality.

i lost myself so many years ago that i hesitate to try to find myself again. i am afraid to begin. existing so often gives me palpitations. i am so afraid to be myself. i am so dangerous.

if all else perished, and he remained, i should still continue to be;

“let it go, then,” stebbins said, and smiled winningly. “if there are such things as souls, his is still close. you could catch up.”

i've gotten so good about not flinching at the sound of your name that people don't know i'd still throw myself mouth-open into the ocean for the chance to drown somewhere you might see it.

i'm sorry. it excited me when you took my hands into yours & turned them over, looking for the burn mark even after i had said i was fine. i'd like for you to hurt me again like that. if only for you to covet me once more.

when i try to picture for myself what a happy life might look like, the picture hasn't changed very much since i was a child— a house with flowers and tress around it, and a river nearby, and a room full of books, and someone there to love me, that's all.

in fact, after reading his account of things, i ached for him, ached for his romantic illusions, and even his dishonesty. i ached even for his gentlemanly malice and his physical presence, the deceptively soft sound of his voice.

we have so much love that it burns like a fire, in which we bake clay figures of you and me. then we take them and break them into pieces and mix them and mold again figures of you and me. i am in your clay. in life we share a single quilt. in death we will share a single coffin.

did i request thee, maker, from my clay to mould me man? did i solicit thee from darkness to promote me?

i know how to fall in love, i do it constantly. i fall in love with everyone i meet for ten minutes at least.

i am changing, becoming something else. a creature of longing tending only to myself. licking my wounds, burrowing down in a house in the woods on the edge of town.

i know it won’t work but make it ache, make it hurt. i’m not better than this, show me what i’m worth. keep me a secret, choose someone else. i’ll still be here hanging off the buckle on your belt.

i wanted to forget him, and yet it seemed i thought of him always. it was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. and sometimes i found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice was still there.

anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; i bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish.

i have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. if i cannot satisfy the one, i will indulge the other.

and he is— oh, well! he is just himself, and i miss him, and miss him, and miss him. the whole world seems empty and aching. i hate the moonlight because it’s beautiful and he isn’t here to see it with me.

i want our summers to always be like this— a kitchen wrecked with love, a table overflowing with baked goods warming the already warm air. after all the pots are stacked, the goodies cooled, and all the counters wiped clean— let us never be rescued from this mess.