“I am a few years older now and I know this: There are tastes of mouths I could not have lived without; there are times I’ve pretended it was just about the sex because I couldn’t stand the way my heart was about to burst with happiness and awe and I couldn’t be that vulnerable, not again, not with this one. That waiting to have someone’s stolen seconds can burn you alive. That the shittiest thing you can do in the world is lie to someone you love; also that there are certain times you have no other choice – not honoring this fascination, this car crash of desire, is also a lie. That there is power in having someone risk everything for you. That there is nothing more frightening than being willing to take this freefall. That it is not as simple as we were always promised. Love – at least the pair-bonded, prescribed love – does not conquer all.”

“As she bends for a Kleenex in the dark, I am thinking of other girls: the girl I loved who fell in love with a lion--she lost her head over it--we just necked a lot; of the girl who fell in love with the tightrope, got addicted to getting high wired and nothing else was enough; all the beautiful, damaged women who have come through my life and I wonder what would have happened if I'd met them sooner, what they were like before they were so badly wounded. All this time I thought I'd been kissing, but maybe I'm always doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, kissing dead girls in hopes that the heart will start again. Where there's breath, I've heard, there's hope.”

“come back so i can say yes this time do it again now that i know what to call what you didthis time i'll be ready i like it rough now and i'm done with romance i never met another man who loved me so much at first sight he had to hurt me to do it”

“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.”

“GONE TO STATICit sounds better than it is,this business of surviving,making it throughthe wrong placeat the wrong timeand livingto tell.when the talk shows and movie creditswear off, it's just me and my dumbluck. this morningI had that dream again:the one where I'm dead.I wake up and nothing'smuch different. everything's gonesepia, a dirty bourbon glassby the bed, you're still dead.I could stumbleto the shower,scrub the luck of breath off my skinbut it's futile.the killer always wins.it's just a matterof time.and I havetime. I have grief and liquor tofill it. tonight, the liquor and I aretalking to you. the liquor says, 'remember'and I fill in the rest, your hands, your smile.all those times. remember.tonight the liquor and Iare telling you about our day.we made it out of bed. we miss you.we were surprised by the blood betweenour legs. we miss you. we made it to the videostore, missing you. we stoppedat the liquor storehoping the bourbon would stopthe missing. there's always morebourbon, more missingtonight, when we got home,there was a stray catat the door.she came in.she screams to be touched.she screamswhen I touch her.she's rightat home.not me.the whisky is openthe vcr is on.I'm runningthe film backwardsand one by oneyou come back to me,all of you.your pulses stutter to a beginyour eyes go from fixed to blinkthe knives come out of your chests, the chainsawsroar outfrom your legsyour wounds seal overyour t-cells multiply, your tumors shrinkthe maniac killerdisappearsit's just you and meand the bourbon and the movieflickering togetherand the air breathes us and I am home, I amluckyI am rightbefore everythinggoes black”

“Two waves in the ocean are talking to each other. The front wave tells the second that it's frightened because it is about to crash into the shore and cease to exist. But the second wave shows no fear. It explains to the first: "You are frightened because you think you are a wave; I am not frightened because know I am part of the ocean.”

“I’m not one to talk about my feelings. It’s too scary. It makes you vulnerable, because if someone knows that you love them, they can hurt you. I couldn’t take any more hurt. I just couldn’t.”