“Fifteen Ways to Stay Alive1. Offer the wolves your arm only from the elbow down. Leave tourniquet space. Do not offer them your calves. Do not offer them your side. Do not let them near your femoral artery, your jugular. Give them only your arm.2. Wear chapstick when kissing the bomb.3. Pretend you don’t know English.4. Pretend you never met her.5. Offer the bomb to the wolves. Offer the wolves to the zombies.6. Only insert a clean knife into your chest. Rusty ones will cause tetanus. Or infection.7. Don’t inhale.8. Realize that this love was not your trainwreck, was not the truck that flattened you, was not your Waterloo, did not cause massive haemorrhaging from a rusty knife. That love is still to come.9. Use a rusty knife to cut through most of the noose in a strategic place so that it breaks when your weight is on it.10. Practice desperate pleas for attention, louder calls for help. Learn them in English, French, Spanish: May Day, Aidez-Moi, Ayúdame.11. Don’t kiss trainwrecks. Don’t kiss knives. Don’t kiss.12. Pretend you made up the zombies, and only superheroes exist.13. Pretend there is no kryptonite.14. Pretend there was no love so sweet that you would have died for it, pretend that it does not belong to someone else now, pretend like your heart depends on it because it does. Pretend there is no wreck — you watched the train go by and felt the air brush your face and that was it. Another train passing. You do not need trains. You can fly. You are a superhero. And there is no kryptonite.15. Forget her name.”

“Don’t do it gurl,” he said with a wink. “You need to pretend like that phone is your best friend’s husband’s dick now drop it.”

“What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”

“Your love should never be offered to the mouth of a Stranger / Only to someone who has the valor and daring to cut pieces of their soul off with a knife / Then weave them into a blanket to protect you.”

“Punishment? You don’t have any right to punish me. And I can curse. I choose not to most of the time, but don’t think it doesn’t go through my head, asshole. I was trying to give you something. I was trying to give you my body.”“That’s where you fucked up, little girl. I don’t want your body. I want your soul. I want your everything. And I definitely want your orgasms. I want them all. I’ll be a greedy bastard, savoring them and hoarding them all for myself. You wanted to give me your body? I can buy that on a street corner, sweetheart. You’re the one who’s being selfish now.”“How is it selfish to offer to have sex? I don’t understand what you want.” “First off, I want you to stop hiding yourself from me. You’re the one making this tawdry by pretending it’s dirty and not worthy of the light of day.”“I didn’t mean it that way.” “We’re going to do this my way. We tried yours and it didn’t work, so I’m taking control. I should have done it in the first place.”

“When you love someone, truly love them, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt-you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul. And when they do strike, it’s crippling-like having your heart carved out.”