#did it rip out my soul and heal me and leave me better than it found me? like a far wilder magic? no not at all lol

[deathsweetblossoms]

Juniper & Thorn Spoilers

Wow standing ovation for Sevastyen Rezkin for seeing the manifested trauma of his lady love in her monster form and deciding he loved her anyway. My ex couldn’t even handle me (rightly) yelling at him for cheating on me, outright calling me a monster for losing my temper. Wowowowow. When will the universe send me an Ivan who can handle my rage and my hurts and my monster form???

[solarecliipse]

if i dare to say !

akaashi keiji x reader.

a/n: sooo my laptop got broke, and i had a hard time getting it repaired, which is why this one's coming like a week later than it was suppossed to, but here it is! in some days i'll have the kageyama x reader too, so keep your eyes open. make sure to take care of yourselfs and get enough sleep :)

you can still remember the way he looked at you that day, eyes cold and distant, like a stranger wearing the face of someone you used to know. the words he said, the way he broke you apart, still echoes in your mind like a song stuck on repeat.

“it’s not working,” he had said, his voice devoid of the warmth that once embraced you. “we need to end this.”

you had asked him why, your voice trembling, but he only shook his head, refusing to give out any real answer. “it’s just better this way,” he had said. And then he walked away, leaving you standing there, with your soul shattered into a million pieces.

for weeks, you tried to understand what went wrong, replaying every moment in your head, searching for signs that you might have missed, but all you could find was more pain, more confusion, until you couldn’t take it anymore. you had to let go, even if you didn’t have all the answers.

months passed, and the wounds he left behind began to heal, slowly and painfully. you forced yourself to move on, to build a life that didn’t revolve around him. you surrounded yourself with friends, threw yourself into your work, and even began to rediscover the things that used to make you happy before he came into your life. it wasn’t easy, and there were days when the ache in your chest felt like it would never go away, but you kept pushing forward, determined to find yourself again, to be whole without him, even if it meant staying away from the things you shared.

and just when you thought you were finally getting there, he came back.

you were sitting at a café with a friend, yukie, laughing over some silly story she was telling you, when you saw him. he walked in as if he belonged there, as if he hadn’t ripped your heart out and left you to pick up the pieces alone. 

you froze, laughter dying in my throat. yukie noticed the change of demeanor and followed your gaze. “oh no,” she muttered.

 “what’s he doing here?” you ask in a hoarse voice.

“i don’t know”

he hadn’t seen you yet, and you had half a mind to slip out before he did, but it was too late. your eyes met across the room, and his face lit up with a smile that made your stomach churn.

he walked over, and you couldn’t help but notice that he looked just the same. same tousled hair, same easy smile, as if no time had passed, as if nothing had changed, but everything had changed. at least for you.

“hey,” he said, his voice annoyingly casual. “it’s been a while.”

“yeah,” you replied, your tone clipped. you wanted to say something more, something sharp and biting, but couldn’t find the words.

yukie glanced between you, clearly uncomfortable. “i’ll, uh, leave you two to talk,” she said, grabbing her purse and giving you a look that said, call me if you need an escape. you nodded, appreciating her unspoken offer, but stayed put. even if it hurt, you needed to hear what he had to say.

“so,” he began, once yukie was gone, “how have you been?”

you stared at him, incredulous. “how do you think i’ve been?” you asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of your voice.

he winced, as if the words had physically hurt him. “i know, i know. i messed up, okay? but I’ve been thinking about things, and i realized that i want us to be friends again.”

friends. the word hung in the air between you, heavy and unwelcome. you almost laughed at the absurdity of it. “you can’t be serious,” you spat, crossing your arms over your chest.

“i am,” he insisted, leaning forward as if that would make his words more convincing. “i miss you. i miss us.”

“us?” you echoed, shaking your head. “there is no ‘us’ anymore, remember? you made sure of that.”

he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “i know i screwed up, and i’m sorry for that, but I was going through a lot, and i didn’t know how to deal with it. breaking up was a mistake, i see that now.”

a mistake. that’s what he called it? a simple mistake, like forgetting to return a phone call or misplacing your keys. not the complete and utter devastation of someone’s trust and heart.

“well, it’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” you said, voice shaking. “you didn’t just hurt me, you broke me, and now you think we can just go back to being friends, like nothing happened?”

“i’m not saying we can go back to how things were,” he said quickly. “i just… i miss having you in my life. can’t we at least try?”

you looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time, didn’t feel that old, familiar pull. the one that used to make you forgive him for everything, that made you overlook the things that hurt. instead, all you could feel was exhaustion, you were tired of fighting for something that was already dead.

“i don’t think we can,” you said quietly, finally admitting the truth to both of you. “too much has happened, and i’ve changed. i’m not the same person you left behind, and i don’t think you are either.”

he looked at you, his expression a mix of regret and something else you couldn’t quite place. “i understand,” he said after a long pause. “i guess i just hoped…”

“yeah,” you cut in, not wanting to hear whatever hope he had been holding on to. “well, we can’t always get what we want.”

he nodded, standing up slowly. “i’m really sorry,” he said, and for the first time, it was like he actually meant it. “for everything.”

you didn’t answer, instead looking away. what was there left to say? he lingered for a moment, as if waiting for you to change your mind, but when you didn’t, he finally walked away.

after he left, you sat there for a long time, staring at the empty seat across from you. and you should have felt relieved, maybe even proud of yourself for standing your ground, but all you could feel was a deep, aching sadness.

[phantom-of-the-501st]

I'm Sorry

Echo has a lot of things he wants to tell his brother

Tags: @saturn-sends-hugs @inkstainedhandswithrings @the-bi-space-ace @floundrickthewayfarer

You broke your promise.

I trusted you and you broke it. But I guess I broke mine too. I said I'd never leave you. I'm sorry. I get angry at you sometimes, for leaving. I know it wasn't your fault. But you promised me that we'd be together 'til the end and yet you're not here.

I feel bad. I feel bad whenever I get mad at you. It wasn't your fault. And it's hypocritical of me. I left first. And I guess maybe you didn't break anything. You didn't leave me because there was no me left to leave. But I'm still angry. I came back and you weren't there. You left and you took a piece of me with you. I've never been whole since and I get so angry at you because of it. You vex me. You infuriate me. And I hate you for it. And I'm sorry. Because it was never your fault. I wish I could apologise to you but I can't. You're not here. But I'll keep saying I'm sorry. I'll store every apology until I can give them to you. Every single one. We'll make a trade. I give you every "I'm sorry" and you give me that piece of me back. Make me whole again.

I think about you. I think about you all the time. You're not here and yet I can never escape you. I see your sadness in the rain, your happiness in the sunlight between the trees, your anger in the lightning and your laughter in the wind. I see your frustration in the growing tide, your peace in the flowers in the meadows, and that twinkle in your eye reflected in the stars. I see you everywhere and yet I can't see you at all.

The others asked why I never grew my beard out. I said it was because it was too much of a bother to maintain. I lied. It's because I can't bear to see your face every time I look in the mirror, or at my own reflection in a pool of water. You haunt me. Every moment of every day, you haunt me. I hear one of our brothers laugh and I turn expecting to see you. Every time someone walks through the door I hope that I'll see that stupid tattoo of yours again, or that smug look on your face. But it's never you. It never will be.

Remember Rishi? I think about it often. Is it a bad thing that it doesn't hurt as much? We lost our whole squad but it doesn't feel the same. It hurt but we healed, we got better and it makes me sad but I'm okay. At least, just a little bit. But you? I don't know how I'll recover from that. You were my other half and now you're gone. The boys left a hole that could be fixed but you took a part of me with you and never came back.

I wasn't even there when it happened. He was. Sometimes I feel like I remind him of you and that hurts. Maybe I don't have the right to feel bad about this. It was a war. We made stupid promises and I broke mine first. I have no right to be mad at you for breaking yours when you couldn't control it. He was there. He held you as it happened. And he still doesn't get angry at you. He's a better man than me but he always was. He's a better man than all of us. Maybe he would have been happier with you here but there's not much we can do about that now is there?

People say that death is the worst thing in the world. Is it? Does it feel worse than this? I can't imagine it. I feel like my soul has been ripped from my body, like my lungs have been filled with lead. My heart burns with an immortal fire and yet I feel cold. I feel so cold.

You were my warmth. And you left.

She has the same laugh as you. I don't know how. I can't explain it but she does. And a twinkle in her eye. It's not yours but it reminds me of you. She would have loved you. And you her. I wish you could have met. Our younger sister. Our older younger sister. It's strange but when did life ever make sense? I ache knowing she'll never get to meet you. That you'll never know the joy that she brings. She glued a part of me together. Started picking up the shards and putting them back in place. I love her for that. I love all of them for that. For helping to hold me together, just a little bit.

But they'll never make me whole because you still have that piece of me with you.

We always joked about getting old, made bets on who would get grey hairs first, who would need a cane or glasses that hung on a chain around their neck. I always said it was you. You were the oldest. And yet I look in the mirror now and I'm the one who got there first. Not the cane, nor the glasses mind you, but the hair definitely changed. I watched each one. Each silver strand. Every one reminds me that I got here before you. And that you'll never get here. You broke your promise. And you won the bet. And I hate you for it.

I hate you so much for leaving and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You never wanted to hurt me and yet you broke me. I'm in pieces because of you.

And I'm so sorry, Fives.

[viacursecasting]

Damn This Heart. ♬

An Ivy Drabble

Summary: Desperate for solace on a night where thoughts of heartbreak won't leave her alone, Ivy seeks help from her mentor, her silver lining...

The moon. The fog. The light through the leaves.

Normally the arachnid would take her time admiring the scenery of the forest clearing, the melody of cicadas, the breeze of the evening... a place of solitude under the stars where she could meditate, could calm her storm of a mind. But tonight was different.

Memories surfaced, bathed in a warm light in her mind's eye. He would gaze at her like no one else existed. Peck her fingers with his lips. Breathe her name against her ear.

But was she thinking about Arte...

Or him?

She vigorously shook her head as if she could purge the memories to no avail. She sighed, clutching her damn heart that she wished she could rip out. She could handle physical pain. At least she could mend it. At least it was tangible. But this overbearing emptiness—feeling everything and nothing all at once, akin to phantom pain of the heart—was all she was left with after giving her soul, her trust, every fiber of her being to someone she thought was The One...

She couldn't fall in love. Not again.

She clawed at her head of snow white hair, on the verge of yanking it out. She didn't know whether to scream or cry or both.

If she disappeared, would the pain cease?

Normally she would bottle up these feelings, tuck them away like a love letter never meant to be sent.

But desperate times called for desperate measures...

~

The arachnid stood on the patio of her mentor's abode, her knuckles hovering over the oak door. The psychokinetic who helped keep her umbrakinesis in check insisted she could contact him whenever she needed. After all, time was on his side. Plus with powers like theirs, it was important for them to be in tune with their emotions. However, she never actually took him up on his offer. Did he truly mean it?

She took a deep breath to muster up her courage, but then retracted her hand. Perhaps she shouldn't wake him—

Suddenly the door creaked open, casting a sliver of candlelight on her face. "Come in," she heard a voice chime.

Ivy stepped inside as the door, engulfed in a cyan aura, closed behind her. "How did you know I was here?"

"I felt a disturbance," said the silvery hedgehog, looking up from his novel as he sat in a lounge chair by the fireplace. Then he gave a cheeky grin as he held up his communicator. "Just kidding. I got a notification from my doorbell camera."

Ivy bowed her head. "Apologies for the intrusion."

Silver waved her concern away, gesturing for her to take a seat. "It's a bit late for one of our training sessions. What's on your mind?"

Ivy did so, wasting no time. "Have you ever been in love?"

Silver reddened. "P-Pardon?"

Ivy enunciated, "Have you ever. Been in love?"

Silver rubbed his neck bashfully. "I... don't know if I would call it that."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed, setting his book down. "It was... complicated. I... cared a lot about him," he explained, careful not to use the L-word. "But it wasn't the place nor time." He laughed, a hollow thing. "Literally."

Ivy surmised, "Time travel kept you away from him?"

Silver nodded solemnly. "He always waited for me but I felt that was unfair to him. I loved him so much that I wanted him to be free."

"Love."

His ears perked. "Hm?"

"You said 'love' that time," Ivy observed.

Interestingly, Silver didn't feel embarrassed. He actually felt... relief. "I guess I did."

Ivy looked downcast. "I think I'm going through something similar."

The hedgehog leaned forward, attentive. It prompted Ivy to continue. "There's someone I want to pursue but... circumstances... are holding me back."

"What kind of circumstances?"

Ivy gripped her core as if that could ease the agony. "I'm afraid I can't move on from the past. Does time really heal all? And if so, how much time?"

"Ivy," Silver said with the utmost sincerity, "time does heal all. I would know better than anyone. But how much time, you ask? I used to wonder the same thing. I still do."

He scrutinized his hands, knowing the power he held. "When I cut ties with my partner, I wondered how long it would take for me to get over it. I traveled through time for weeks. Months. Even centuries.

"The thing is," he continued, "even though so much time had passed, the heartbreak remained as if it had been yesterday."

He clawed at his chest, reliving the hurt. "It was then I realized I had to physically let the time pass. No shortcuts. No loopholes. Only then did I heal."

Ivy was afraid he would say that. "If that's so, then it wouldn't be fair to make him wait."

"Are you talking about Arte?"

Ivy's breath hitched as she quickly averted her gaze.

Silver let out a soft chuckle. "Listen. I haven't met him personally, but based on what Blaze says about him as her student, I know he's a man of his word."

"But that's the problem!" Ivy cried. "He claims he'd wait an eternity for me, but he shouldn't waste his youth waiting for someone who..." She swallowed, trying to contain the crack in her voice. "Who can't bear another broken heart."

Deep in thought, Silver rubbed his chin. "If you live in fear of the past," he pondered, "are you truly living?"

Ivy's eyes stung with tears. "It's all I have." Sudden thoughts of the jackal swarmed her mind like a fervent tornado. His searing touch. His tempting voice. His lustful gaze. "He—was all—!"

The void in her chest was all too real, and she felt herself being swallowed, her sanity taking a nosedive into the abyss as the dam of her tears broke.

The hedgehog swiftly but gently placed his palm on her forehead, emitting a calming aura to ease her racing mind, to steady her erratic breathing. He encouraged her to take a few deep breaths with him, and after some time, she mellowed, and the world seemed to slow down again.

Silver sat back, offering a handkerchief to his pupil as they embraced the silence, save for the crackling fire.

Eventually he said, "You know... the sun must set in order to rise."

Ivy wiped her tears. "Is this another one of your cryptic lessons?"

Silver laughed. "What I mean is, this will pass. Take some time to heal. To find yourself. As long as you communicate with that special someone, what's 'fair' or not doesn't matter. He should get to decide if he wants to wait," he advised, giving her a reassuring wink.

Ivy let out an amused huff behind her mask. "Perhaps you should take your own advice."

Silver smiled, gazing fondly at a portrait of him with his arm around a blushing magenta chameleon. "Yeah...

"Perhaps I will."

[specialagentlokitty]

Daryl x reader - no angels here

Part 8:

Balthazar tried to find a place to start, somewhere to shed some light on your past.

“(Y/N) is known as what’s called a knight of hell. Doesn’t have much to do with humanity unless called upon by someone, maybe to make a deal or to bring somebody back to hell.”

“So, exactly like she appears then?” Daryl scoffed.

“You must understand Daryl, there is a reason behind all of this. Why she became a knight of hell.”

Daryl gave him a look, telling him to carry on talking, so he did.

“(Y/N) was so kind, caring, loving. More empathy than anybody you could ever meet, she loved life, she loved humanity.”

Balthazar sighed slightly.

“Angels are created, when we grow some of us are given a job, a title of you will. Protector, healer, guide. (Y/N)’s was mercy, she was the Angel of mercy.”

Daryl furrowed his brows a little bit.

“It’s not what you think. The Angel of mercy was responsible for collecting dying souls, listening to the pleas of people and their families, the begging for their lives to be spared and not being able to spare them because that was her job. Take their souls and leave the families and friends behind broken.”

Balthazar took a small breath, looking down at the floor.

“She tried to help, tried to find a way around the rules but every single time she was punished for it. Eventually hearing the broken pleas of people grieving destroyed her, she couldn’t bare it anymore. She didn’t agree with anything that was going on here and wanted to change it.”

He raised his gaze to meet with Daryl’s.

“I don’t know what happened to her between then and now, I know she was cast out of heaven, landed in hell. She never told me what happened to her during this time, but I do know she believes she has to walk alone, because that’s what she was always told.”

“What?”

“Nobody wanted to be the friend of the Angel of mercy, the one responsible for taking souls. Over time she became convinced she would be better off alone, she shunned any sort of warm feeling somebody may feel towards her, believing she didn’t deserve it.”

Daryl believed that, because he had seen that with his very own eyes.

“She doesn’t think she deserves anything good, in reality, out of everybody I know, she deserves so much good in her life.”

“Why?”

“Because all she ever wanted to do was make people happy, make their pain go away, help them. Even now, an outcaste from heaven and hell themselves.”

“You’re hiding something.”

Balthazar sighed.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice, but yes. (Y/N) did something in the past, I don’t know what exactly, but whatever it was, it still haunts her to this day, she flicks between reality and memory, past and present. Sometimes she doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t.”

Balthazar sat forward, showing his wings to Daryl, and he stretched them out a little bit.

“Our wings are one of the most important things to us, when I arrived here I had mine cut off, ripped from my very skin. She’s got them back, put them back for me. Providing they’re still part of us no matter what damage we take to them we can always heal them, she refuses to heal her wings. The state they’re in causes immense pain to move, to even touch, but she won’t heal them. Because she doesn’t seem herself worthy of that.”

He folded his wings against his back.

“You brought out a side of her that she had shoved down for so many centuries, you brought a light to her life that she never thought she had. She’ll stay here to protect you, even if you don’t want her here because that’s the kind of being she is.”

Balthazar went back to laying down.

“She was a ray of hope that was snuffed out by careless and cruel beings.”

Balthazar sat up again, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot.

“Let me show you something.”

He held out his hand, forming a ball of lights and Daryl gripped at his crossbow which made the Angel chuckle a little bit.

“Relax, it won’t hurt you. Watch.”

He dropped it on the floor, watching as it spread out like liquid, covering the floorboards and it shimmered a little bit.

It formed pictures, laughter flowed through the air, following two small angels running through the clouds.

“This was us as children, happy, carefree.”

Daryl could see which one was you just off your smile, that soft bright smile you always wore.

The pictures changed every few seconds, showing you growing up, still smiling and happy, showing you stood proudly, the most radiant golden wings on your back.

You looked eternal. As beautiful as the day he first saw you, the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on.

And slowly, as the pictures changed, so did you, your smile fading, you began to look more tired, the colour fading from your wings.

“The final memory I had of (Y/N) until here, is when she fell.”

Daryl gazed at the image of you, hand stretched out, as if you were trying to grab somebody, flames surrounding your body, a dangerous emptiness in your eyes.

“She is not the bad guy here Daryl, (Y/N) is the victim of a cruel and unjust civilisation who humanity adores.”

Daryl got up, leaving the room without a thought, and he took himself out of Alexandria for the day, simply just to get out of the place.

He didn’t return until that evening, and he simply took himself off to his room.

Sitting on his bed he looked at the painting you had made for him shortly after arriving in Alexandria, it wasn’t that extraordinary compared to most art, but it was his.

That’s what matter.

You painted a field of wildflowers and gave it to him.

You have painted something absolutely peaceful, sometimes you found so relaxing, and your first thought was to give it to him.

Daryl kept replaying over he was told over and over in his head, seeing those images of you not knowing if they were real or fake.

There wasn’t any way for him to tell, not if he stayed away from you.

If he wanted to confirm the truth he needed to speak to you, but Daryl was doubting everything you had told them.

Then he remembered the look in your eyes when you were so close to him he could almost feel your lips against his.

That wasn’t a lie.

He knew that.

That look in your eyes was completely real, all the insecurities and fears you felt were real, and they all made sense now.

Even if all of this was so hard to wrap his head around, it connected all the dots that didn’t seem to make sense over the past few years.

He did try to sleep, but he couldn’t, not until he had all the answers he wanted, and he still hadn’t heard your side of the story.

Getting up, he walked to his table, quickly doing something, tying to to one of the bolts for his crossbow and he walked out the front of the house.

It wasn’t all that hard to spot you, still sat where you had been sat this entire time, and he aimed the crossbow, adjusting it slightly as needed.

Putting his finger on the trigger, he pulled it, and made his was back inside.

Sitting on the chair facing the front door, he set his crossbow down next to him, setting his knife on his lap instead.

You had seen Daryl out the corner of your eyes readying his crossbow.

You didn’t flinch as the bolt buried into into the roof just next to you, and you reached out, picking it up, taking the paper tied to it just to read two words.

‘Talk now.’

That’s all it said.

You debated this, wondering if it was a good idea, but you decided you at least owed him this.

You owed him a talk.

So you took the bolt and made your way down to the ground, making your way over to the house so you could walk inside, over to where he was sat.

You walked over the couch, setting the bolt down on the table.

“Next time don’t miss.”

“I wasn’t aiming for you.”

“You should. I know you want to, I wouldn’t stop you.”

Daryl didn’t say anything, he watched as you sat down on the floor, resting an arm behind you, your red eyes meeting his.

“Balthazar told me everything he knew.”

“I told him to.”

“Why not tell me yourself?”

You looked away.

“I thought it would be easier I suppose, for me. Easier that I didn’t have to look at you, any of you.”

“That’s a load of shit.”

You gave a half shrug.

“You wanted to talk. I’m here. Ask whatever you want.”

“Why did you fall?”

You snapped your eyes to him.

“You can ask me anything and you want to know why I fell from Grace?”

“Yes.”

You gave a small nod of your head, sitting up properly, clasping your hands and resting them in your lap.

“Alright.”

You took a small breath.

“I assume Balth told you my job?”

“Angel of mercy.”

“For millennia I listened to the cries and pleas of humans begging god not the let them down, asking god why would he take away somebody they cared for so much, heading the pained and angry and confused voices of humans not understanding how something so terrible could happen to somebody they knew. Even though they knew death was a part of being human.”

You sighed.

“I watched humans kill each other, destroy their own creations, their very own people, then beg to be forgiven, beg to be allowed redemption, all these cries fell on deaf ears. Because god wasn’t interested. God didn’t care less about humanity, that was my job, to take all of this pain and hatred and deal with it myself.”

You clenched your jaw a little.

“Do you have any idea what that does to somebody? How those cries echo inside somebodies head night after night? Because I do, and it slowly drives somebody mad. I followed my father because I thought what he was doing was right, but slowly I began to see that nobody cared about this world or the people suffering inside of it.”

You balled your hands so tightly that your claws dug into your own skin.

“I began to question if we were really helping humanity build a better world for themselves. We weren’t helping them, we were just watching them live their lives in pain and struggle.”

There was a small crack in your voice.

“One day I had enough… I took all these emotions I felt from humanity over the millennia, everything they felt, I felt, and I surged those emotions through heaven itself. I forced every single angel to feel what they had felt. I brought the heavens to their knees.”

You did the exact same thing that Balthazar had done, letting light pool into the ground, showing him an image of endless angels on their knees, clutching their heads.

“I raised my hands.”

Daryl watched the image of you doing exactly that.

“I drew the very fires of hell to heaven, and I set fire to it all. Because why should they get to live in such peace when humanity was suffering like that?”

Daryl saw you set the entirety of heaven on fire, the clouds burning red and gold as ash fell from the sky.

“I was done being a puppet for their game, for my father when he just abandoned us all.”

You slowly stood up, moving the table aside so he was able to see the images you were showing him a little better.

“I burned a quarter of heaven down that day until they finally managed to capture me, restrain me and locked me away for hundreds of years, trying to figure out how I managed to raise literal hell.”

You crouched down, sweeping your hand across the floor to brush the images away.

“You don’t need to see what they did. They were ruthless, furious. They had every reason to be, I betrayed my own people, defending humanity and that was seen as a crime. After hundreds of years of trying to break me, they finally gave in, cast me down to hell, where I was named a knight of hell, set to corrupt humans, hurt them, and I didn’t want that.”

You stood up, running a hand through your hair.

“So I was locked away by hell, unwanted by them, but they at least were kinder than the angels, they didn’t hurt me, just took my powers and kept me locked away from the world.”

You slowly turned to look at him.

“Unwanted by hell, hunted down by heaven, I finally broke free, I came to earth to see this was happening. Now the angels are after me because they realised that their mistake was not killing me when they had the chance, because I’ve had a long time reflecting on the past and what I had done, and they knew that I could come after them again if I wanted to.”

You sat down on the table, refusing to look at him.

“What changed? Why didn’t you?”

You smiled a little bit.

“Because I met you… and I wanted to stay with you all… protect you…”

You went silent, and Daryl leant forward a little to see tears running down your face, but they weren’t normal clear tears, they were red, leaving bloody marks down your face.

“I didn’t want to show you who I was because I knew it would all be over… the first good thing I have in so long… it would be gone…”

You took a shaky breath.

“I am so sorry I lied to you Daryl… but everything that happened… what I said and I did was real…” you whispered.

You buried your head in your hands.

“I am so sorry…”

You stood up, taking a shaky breath and tried to wipe your tears away but they just kept falling, and suddenly there was a hand on the back of your head.

Daryl guided your head to his shoulder, keeping a hand there as he wrapped his other arm around your waist, mindful of your wings as he remembered what Balthazar said about them being painful.

You fully broke, sobs wracking your body and you clung to him tightly whispering over and over and over again how sorry you were.

He didn’t say anything, but he did rest his head against yours, closing his eyes.

He could feel your body wracking with sobs, your bloodied tears hitting against his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry…”

“I know…”

Daryl guided you to the couch, sitting down with you sat next to him, still crying as you finally let out everything you had been hiding from him and now it all rested in his hands.

Did he forgive you? Did he accept everything you told him?

Or did he distance himself from you, and act like he didn’t know you?

He wasn’t sure.

But right now all he knew was that you were hurting, and he hated to see you crying, he could never stand to see you anything but happy

[elliemarchetti]

Tamlin Week Day 3

An excerpt from ACOTAR's chapter 19 in Tamlin's POV for @tamlinweek

Prompt: Mates

Words: 770

If they had suspected it during the day, at dinner it became perfectly clear that Feyre was in a bad mood. Both Tamlin and Lucien noticed as soon as she sank into her seat, and without needing further agreement, they decided to just chat with each other, sympathetic to what she might be feeling, far from home and seemingly destined never to see it, or her family, again. Of course, this didn’t stop the High Lord from following her into the rose garden at the end of the meal. Just to check on her, he told himself, and not because she was a sight to behold, with her hair of burnished gold kissed by the moonlight that stained the red petals a deep purple and casted a silvery sheen on the white blossoms. He hoped she found her surroundings inspiring, something worth of the art she so deeply loved.

“My father had this planted for my mother,” he said, still a few steps behind, sure he wouldn’t take the huntress by surprise. She didn’t bother to turn to acknowledge him, on the contrary, she dug her nails into her palms as he halted by her side.

“It was a mating present,” he went on, trying to distract her from the guilt she was undoubtedly feeling. Deep down, she probably knew she deserved better than what she had in the mortal lands, but she was unused to have the time and money needed to pursue her vocation, so he didn’t stop her when she stalked to the nearest bush and ripped off a rose, her fingers tearing on the thorns.

“I don’t know why I feel so tremendously ashamed of myself for leaving them. Why it feels so selfish and horrible to paint. I shouldn’t feel that way, should I? I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it,” she finally rambled, words flowing out of her mouth like a swollen river. “All those years, what I did for them… And they didn’t even try to stop you from taking me.”

There it was, the giant pain that cracked her in two if she thought about it too long. Over time, Tamlin had discovered that everyone had one, no matter how old or young they were. And Feyre… she had grown up too fast not to have already stumbled upon it.

“I don’t know why I expected them to, why I believed that the puca’s illusion was real that night. I don’t know why I bother still thinking about it, or why I still care. Compared to you, to your borders and magic being weakened, I suppose my self-pity is absurd,” she added, so resignated of something so wrong.

“If it grieves you, then I don’t think it’s absurd at all,” he replied, and although he wasn’t as silver tongued as his best friend nor as well versed when emotions were concerned, he spoke with his heart, because she needed to have her feelings validated for once.

“Why?” she asked flatly, chucking the rose into the bushes.

Before the crimson droplets could stain her dress, Tamlin took her hands, his calloused fingers, strong and sturdy, as gentle as possible as he lifted her wound to his mouth and kissed her palm to heal it. She was so thin, so fragile… she shouldn’t waste the blood that flowed in her veins, not even a drop.

“Why do any of this?” she pushed, and he stepped closer, making her tip her head back to meet his eyes, exposing her long neck. He wanted to bite her, leave his mark where anyone could see it, make her his even if he had no right to call her that.

“Because your humanity fascinates me. The way you experience things, in your life span, so wildly and deeply and all at once, is entrancing. I’m drawn to it, even when I know I shouldn’t be, even when I try not to,” he lied, or maybe he just omitted the end of the sentence. He truly was enthralled, and he was probably starting to love her, but she was bound to grow old and die, a concept foreign to him; there was no way for their souls to be two halves of the same, and she couldn’t be the mate he so desperately wished for, the female who was able to understand his wants and desired without the need for an explanation.

“One day there will be answers for everything,” he concluded, anticipating her next question, before brushing his lips against her heartbreakingly warm and soft cheek. “But not until the time is right. Until it’s safe.”

[rainbowonice]

writing down all my problems with this episode to heal my soul and release my inner hater self:

Athena pestering Amir and abusing her power as a cop once again without repercussions

the narrative using Amir, a man that lost his wife in a terrible fire and got literally scarred for life, as a red herring MULTIPLE times literally leave him alone he did nothing to deserve this

Eddie's parents character regression, Helena SMILING the whole time and Ramon saying that Shannon is "even in death that woman is making his life a chaos” like? neither he or Chris ever got over her and Kim made it 100 times worse and they didn't fix it or address how Shannon death affected them, Eddie is still romanticising her, his family is still vilanizing her and we have no idea what Chris thinks even if that should have been where the story was taking us, them finally having a real talk about Shannon, instead they made Chris run away.

daddy kink joke i already made a post about this but id like to add that daddy issues ≠ daddy kink and that making them equal is gross and is harmful having parental issues shouldn't be a sexual thing.

cartel not cartel thing taking up 40% of the episode for literally no reason and i already made a post on how racist that whole plot is

Bobby dying for 14 minutes and then being ok by THE END OF THE DAY and then 2 WEEKS LATER coming in at work without telling it to anyone else and without even taking away his retirement request??????

the zero stakes regarding Bobby's life the team looking unfazed, no one was crying, no one was really worried and at the end of the day we even got Buck having a dinner date wearing the same shirt he has been wearing THE WHOLE DAY (I'm not letting this slide I'm sorry that's my new roman empire) like ok i thought that we were a family lmao?

Bobby suicidal thought are healed ig now sure

Madney taking temporary custody of Mara first of all a quick google search told me it takes "after you complete your training, it usually takes about three to four months" and they did it in like a week help and the whole narrative is just lesbianphobia. Henren can't get a single family story without it ending with the kid taken away or the kid thinking that two mothers aren't enough there is a need of a dad... while is a cute scene or whatever it reeks of cishet couple does it better and without struggle while the black lesbians have to struggle and beg.

that old fart coming back he's 200 years old at best what the fuck a cold will take him out prince Philip looked better 2 days before perishing be real how is he supposed to be a threat? Just sneeze near him GOD

the episode overall was predictable af and honestly boring it fell flat and the screentime Amir got was CRAZY they cut so many scenes they cut a whole Eddie and Chris scene of them crying in Chris room (what was the context we will never know rip) just to get 100 scenes of the cartel, the ugliest date scene you've ever experienced in your life and Athena neighbour from 4 doors down.

this season was The Worst season they ever made even worse than season 1 and 6 and you guys have no idea how much i hate them. It was a whole mess rushed, dumb, badly written, badly executed, wasted time on useless scenes and cut away too much, they didn't had a single normal call, they didn't had a single fire engine scene, they all looked disconnected and it legit made no sense not even the actors liked it.

[blodgmonster]

Part 3 of my EoS ToD tandem reread commentary. Getting to the end of both books so it should be less of a slog now.

-- Yrene pushing Hasar into the pool. Priceless.

-- "I loved you before I ever set eyes on you." SARTAQ!!!!! God, men written by women are just so much better than the real thing.

"' We wait for the Queen of the Valg,' the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. 'Who in this world calls herself Maeve." The fucking SHOCK when I read that the first time. God damn.

-- "' You once asked me where I stand on the line between killing to protect and killing for pleasure.' His fingers grazed the seam of the scar across her abdomen. 'I'll stand on the other side of that line when I find your grandmother.'" DORIAN!!!! FUCK YEAH!

-- Gah, I'm getting confused on what chapters from which book I'm supposed to be reading in which order. And I'm like 85% of the way through both of them.

-- I was right. The Eye is the Lock

-- Hey, Nehemia....

-- It's so funny that all this time Elena has been portrayed as wise and serene. And then we find out she was reckless and short sighted and stupid.

-- "Everything he had done, Aelin had come to rip it apart. Starting with his honor." You did that all by yourself, Chaol. God, get OVER it, you Criston Cole ass bitch.

-- "He only looked toward the dark and smiled. Not broken. Made anew. And when the darkness beheld him...Chaol slid a hand against its cheek. Kissed its brow. It loosened its grip and tumbled back into that pit. Curled up on that rocky floor and quietly, carefully, watched him." What a lovely metaphor.

-- Hell yeah, House Whitethorn

-- Last 100 pages of EoS. Here we fucking go.

-- ABRAXOS AND THE THIRTEEN ARRIVING IN THE NICK OF TIME!!

-- LORCAN, YOU DUMB FUCK

-- "I'll go with you, I'll come with you" ELIDE, YOU BEAUTIFUL SOUL.

-- Aelin being whipped.

-- "Where is my wife?"

-- AEDION, SHUT THE FUCK UP

-- *heavy sigh * That's Eos done. Time to finish ToD.

-- having the Valg be Duva is a fantastic little twist. Sweet, mostly ignored preggo lady.

-- I wonder...will the baby be born fucked up? The Valg was infesting its mother the whole time it was developing in utereo. Will it have been affected?

-- Aelin's self-defense lessons coming through to save Yrene.

-- I think the scar Aelin gave Chaol should have stayed. Maybe that's mean of me but...

-- "I am as much of a man in that chair, or with that cane, as I am standing on my feet." Alright! Chuck that ableism out the window!

-- Oh, shitballs. I forgot that Yrene and Chaol's lives are now tied to each other so that if one dies they both die. Just like Feyre and Rhysand. SJM must think this is suuuuuper romantic. I think otherwise. A suttee is not romantic. Leaving your potential children to deal with suddenly becoming an orphan is not romantic. Leaving your loved ones to mourn not just one but both of you is not romantic.

-- Sometimes she makes it seem like Yrene actually goes INSIDE Chaol or Duva when she's healing them. That can't be right. It's her like...power going inside and fighting what's inside, right? Homegirl does not Magic School Bus her way into the human body. Right?

-- so the fetus is healthy and human. BUT will it be a sociopath or an asshole?

-- Poor Duva. Get her some therapy.

-- I'm so glad Nesryn claimed a ruk

-- Nesryn got a MASSIVE upgrade with Sartaq. And not just because he's the heir to the khaganate. Because he wonderful.

-- SJM like...never writes weddings. They always just get married in some secret ceremony off camera. Very weird.

-- "A gift from a queen who had seen another woman in hell and thought to reach back a hand. With no thought of it ever being returned. A moment of kindness, a tug on a thread..." I hope you feel kind of shitty about all the mean things you said about Aelin, Chaol. She saved your wife.

-- Fireheart. Locked away in the dark.

Well. I don't think I'll do the tandem reread again. But it certainly was a cool experience. A slog, but cool. Onto KoA, destroyer of my heart.

[sassquatch118]

Pain, fresh from the soul

Of course you would blow up on me when I told you I wanted to leave our friendship behind, I don’t hold that against you. I know it’s a defense mechanism and I know I ripped your heart out and for that I am sorry. But you in your arrogance will never truly understand why I left because it’s the first time someone did it without making you into a monster or constantly breaking the silence to reach out to you, your friends and family in a pitiful attempt to get back into your life once they realize how wonderful you are. I always knew about the heart of gold you kept hidden and locked away from the rest of the world, you trusted me with it. At least in the beginning you did. I did everything I could to nurture it, raise your spirits from the depths and pull you back down to earth when you soared too high, and you did the same for me, we were inseparable, inspiring each other to achieve our goals and dreams. But as you healed you grew more distant too, I didn’t even notice at first until a few years ago. After your accident your memories became blurred with amnesia and all the parts of me worth remembering slowly faded from your mind until I was just another person you had met in your past who for some reason clung to you, someone who hugged you a bit too tight for unknown reasons. That killed me, feeling that distance, knowing that the one person I had grown to love more dearly than anyone else couldn’t bear my company. Then came the lies, they started out small, barely noticeable. A tiny white lie that I would flick aside, pretending as if I didn’t notice it. This would eventually turn into you hiding your entire life from me, moving across the country, new jobs, new friends. Again, I brushed all these aside because in the bottom of my heart I still cared for you deeply, passionately. I let my love blind me until I came to the realization the only real reason I was still in your life was because you didn’t have the heart to cut me out of it. This past year has been rough for me and I relied on you too much to keep my head above the waves of my own sorrow, but while you saw me sinking it’s like you pretended not to hear me. You ignored my pain, my loneliness because you had enough on your plate already. And I tried to respect that, I tried to understand the hardships you were facing until I realized that it was all superficial. That if you genuinely cared about me and my well being like your other best friends you would have dropped everything in a heartbeat for me. But I wasn’t even worth a phone call or a surprise visit to an old friend. No instead you sent your father with a “gift” that you turned against me in our falling out that has only caused me more hardships and pushed me further under the waves. You assume what I did was out of a resentment towards you, not even allowing me the chance to explain myself before cutting me off. I didn’t leave you because I was resentful, I respected every fiber of your being every step of the way, no matter what you went through, to the best of my abilities. Leaving you took every ounce of courage I had and shattered my own heart in the process, I’m not sure I will ever pick up all the pieces. And I sure won’t be nearly as trusting with a single human being ever again in my life. If you ever find this I hope you know I forgave you for everything even though you don’t deserve it and you don’t deserve me. But this isn’t meant for you. This is meant to cleanse this pain from my mind, a space to vent what burdens me the most. I just wish that I was capable of feeling as alive as you made me feel again. Maybe with time, care and healing but definitely not anytime soon. I hope you live a full life surrounded by people who love and care for you.

Note: If you know me irl, it’s better to leave this one alone. The damage has been done and I wish to move on

[paperbagnotes]

11:10

I woke up minute before

Dead electronic

Plug it in

My chest sinks and my heart explodes

Stinging down my nose

Tears gush from my eyes soaking my pillow

Idk what woke me

You are not here

You are not in love with me

In a dream you were holding on to me

So happy

Beaming - smiling - shining

Looking at me lovingly

When you kissed me it almost felt real

Dissolved to nightmare

You were avoiding me.

Much like reality

You weren’t real to me

Treating me like everyone else

Or worse even

I felt your neglect

Not making eye contact

You couldn’t even look at me

When moments before you couldn’t look away

What changed

I can not feel the heart beat in my chest

Yet it’s racing

I ran into a man as I was running away

Even though I knew I was so lost, only trying to get back to you

He said “sometimes it just takes longer, but if It’s inside of you it’s always been there, it will show, you’ll see”

I can’t go back

But I’m stuck right here

A dirty secret being tried to forget

I’m never beautiful when I wake up

Eyes puffy,

Now swollen from so many tears

I see my reflection as I pass the mirror

“What makes me think I’m beautiful enough to be your equal”

Your beauty is almost unmatched for me

I don’t believe I can even compare

“What made me think I’d ever go far”

Woke up to hyperventilate

I’m not living a dream

I’m drowning

My soul is exhausted

Each day moves on and I don’t hear from you

I fear I never will again

I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to spend any time together

Part of me believes that currently it’s completely impossible

I’m trapped in love with you and I can’t even explain how it happened

I feel this is torture

My lips quivering

Why do I feel this way

How does it change?

I don’t know what’s true

Nothing makes sense to me anymore

I saw it all

And now there’s nothing?

Only see you in my dreams. Nightmares.

Wake up worn out already

Done with the day

Ready to go away

Ready to die already

Idk what’s wrong with me

I don’t know anything

I don’t know what to do

Keep asking for gods guidance

But how can I believe in it if it’s hurting me so much

I have no dreams. I have no desires.

Given up on happiness

Even simply being alive hurts so much

Thinking/living in the after math

Of your avoidance and neglect

Meant to be “bubbly” “happy go lucky”

But I feel nothing

Only sorrow

I don’t even feel alive.

I let that sink in

& numb me

What more can I do

I’m at a stand still

You have all the power

Only you can choose

And I’m not even being spoken to

Idk how else to think it’s anything else but done for you

Maybe I was never anything to you but just something new..

I thought I did better then that. Knew I was.

But maybe you’re just not who I think you are

I haven’t experienced any real you

Only pleasantries and niceties

Proper politeness

A total of maybe an hr spent together

It doesn’t make sense that this is ripping a hole through me

Bigger than the Caspian Sea

I keep telling myself I don’t know you

Don’t understand this connection I feel

I pray I haven’t been delusional

But maybe that’s the truth

I need to kill all these parts of me

I don’t know how to empty or drain any of this from my brain

How is it so easy for him

To keep loving the same life he’s been

Not having his whole world changed

He resisted

Blew it out the door before he shut it and my first fuck up fucked it

Not looking to work through anything with anybody

I showed him I had questions I wanted what’s real and raw..

Maybe (pissed)pushed him off (away)

Maybe he never feels or thinks for me

All I have is maybes

And a broken heart

No one has ever hurt me like this.

I’ve never had to constantly be reminded someone is leaving me, not believing in me,

I wish it was just romantic rejection

Everyone could say no if he said yes

But I don’t even know him

It’s impossible to know what’s true

If he won’t even tell me anything

How can I feel any of this

If he can treat me this way

God help me

I can’t feel like this anymore

I fear I’ll never heal and I can’t even explain any of it

I’m warped and changed and I’ll never be the same

And it’s not fair he is unchanged and

Not even ..my own mother believed he could love me..

But she’s never believed in anything for me

Who am I? I must not be worth keeping

Inside or out

I wasn’t enough. I messed up

So easy to drop me

Leave me for dead

What’s the difference then personally killing me, ending everything. Then forcing me to live in this peril plagued existence.

I’d rather be peaceful

Resting easy

Then my heart hurting this badly ..just endlessly? For eternity?

How could you do that to anybody

Let them die slowly

Miserable

And alone

Do I belong in hell?

What have I done?

Because I honestly believe this is my nightmare

And I’m living it every horrific thing I’d hope don’t happen to anybody

Befalling

Me

Why do all these horrible things have to happen to me. Why do I have to be the one to go through every gut wrenching, unspeakable action the world can imagine..

I don’t want to be strong

I want a life I love

I want to be loved by someone other than me, treated better than I can treat myself,

Someone I dream of too

Together in it all only

Not like this

Not like this

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ���1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[prose-for-hire]

Kiss me quick

Pairing: Spike x Summers!reader

Request: Hi! Can I request a Spike x Summers!reader, where the reader is trying to keep their relationship on the downlow since none of the Scoobies really approve, but after a big win the reader finally kisses him in front of everyone, proving that they do care deeply for one another and everyone just has to accept it.

Requested by: Anon

Warning: Reader gets injured but nothing serious. sex references/implication of sex.

You looked out into dimly lit street, the dark had surrounded you now but ever since you had been meeting this way you couldn’t help but smile whenever the sun began to descend from the sky. You were stood, under a streetlamp, three streets away from your house. Just far enough where nobody from your household would catch you meeting him this way. You had been meeting like this for a while now.

He got a kick out of coming up behind you and immediately pressing you against the nearest wall and crashing his lips to yours. His favourite greeting entailed leaving you breathless and ready to pull him closer no matter what your surroundings were. He often mumbled his hellos through stolen kisses. His passion never died, he was all in. Completely yours.

You couldn’t shake this feeling. That you were completely in love. You had silently tried to fight it to begin with, knowing that those around you wouldn’t approve. That Spike himself may not even reciprocate your feelings. But soon it became clear that there was no hiding these feelings that always bubbled to the surface whenever he was near.

You had started fooling around to begin with, before it all changed. For the better, both of you agreed. Your feelings had taken hold of you both, fuelled by the touch of skin. The depth of mind. Unspoken emotions kept the two of you in a chokehold before you finally spilled your feelings for the other.

Ever since you quit college, you had spent all of your free time sneaking around with Spike. It was, honestly, as thrilling as it was annoying. As much as you wished you could just tell everyone how much you loved Spike - how amazing he was with you, you couldn’t. You had to hide it, the implications of your friends and sisters finding out would be a fate worse than death. In fact, for spike it may mean actual death this time.

Unfortunately, you were the middle child. You were a year younger than Buffy and she never let you forget about it. Meaning, Buffy thought she was the boss of you. Not to mention Dawn basically clung onto your leg to stop you from leaving the house (and thus, preventing you leaving her behind where she couldn’t follow you around). This meant that, often, you didn’t get much spare time for sneaking around with Spike. But, God, did you make it your biggest priority. After… saving the world… obviously.

When you did manage to share these intimate moments, it was everything. It felt as if you were the only people in the world. The only people that had ever felt anything close to this. Nobody had loved this deep. Cared this much. You were both so sure. These feelings, they were eternal. He vowed it to you, one early morning you had spent with your naked bodies pressed together, baring your souls well into the night.

Any emotional scars you harboured seemed to heal just by speaking to him. By having that soothing voice share his own darkest moments with you in return. How that voice, those eyes could have seen and done so much and still make you feel undeniably safe you weren’t sure. But, you trusted him. Even if danger appeared to surround him at every turn. You wouldn’t change him for anything. You loved the good, the bad and the oh-so-attractive parts of him.

Vulnerabilities turned to strengths when you were together. Rough edges appeared smoother. Promises held meaning. You adored him and he confessed to you that he had never been so comfortable in a relationship. He could be himself, could express his feelings without being concerned you would turn away from him.

The first night you invited him into your home made him elated. You had to make him swear not to tell Buffy because you knew she wouldn’t take it well. Like, at all. As much as he would have loved to rub it in the slayer’s face that he had been given access to her house – he loved you too much to even think to upset you in this way. So, you carried on this way, unable to keep your hands and lips from each other for more than an evening at a time. This meant mostly, he stayed at the Summer’s residence or you left to the crypt. Sometimes, you even went for real dates – so long as you were sure that everyone else you knew would be busy elsewhere.

Tonight, you were going to the Bronze together. It was a little more of a risk than usual, but he had insisted on taking you somewhere he knew you would enjoy. Muttered something about not keeping you in the shadows before taking your hand and leading the way. The truth was, Spike was in fact just very smitten with you. And he pretty much wanted everyone to see that you were with him. This was ‘everyone’ except the scoobies and any family members you happened to have crawling out of the woodwork. It was safe though, everyone else was going to some college party and Buffy had told you that it was uncool to have her younger sibling come along.

Buffy was the only one that viewed you as the ‘younger sibling’ the others were friends with you because they were fond of you. Because, well, sometimes you appeared more mature than Buffy did – not that they would ever say that to her face. Although there was always that slight worry that if they hadn’t been friends with Buffy they wouldn’t have been as close with you. You were barely a year younger than Buffy but she was still incredibly protective of you as she was the oldest.

What you hadn’t banked on, whilst you rubbed Spike’s thigh under the table, was that Xander hadn’t been invited to the party. He saw you immediately and made his way over to you with Anya close behind. You almost choked on your drink as you saw them come up behind Spike. You snapped your hand away in shock much to Spike’s displeasure.

“Hey, Y/n-” he started and then stopped when he saw Spike’s presence, “He bothering you?”

“No, he’s just-”

“Warming you up, right pet?” His eyes glistened as he spoke, an eyebrow raising which made Xander scowl. You tried your best to hide the smile at your boyfriend’s words as Xander looked between you both. Xander liked to think of himself as your older brother and had decided you needed defending. You opened your mouth to say otherwise but ended up being cut off by a very urgent ex-vengeance demon.

“It doesn’t matter that they’re dating right now, we are all going to get ripped into pieces if the demon finds us!” Anya shouted. You hadn’t been as secretive as you thought then.

“An!” Xander hissed, sharing a look. At the exact same time you and Spike shared a look too. You wondered who else had seen straight through your sneaking around and longing glances you shared through scooby meetings.

You were sharing looks for different reasons though. They had obviously discussed what not to say beforehand and Anya had characteristically ignored his warning. There was some kind of demon threatening the town. Again.

“What’s going on, Xander? Anya?” you tried for your ex-vengeance demon friend when Xander didn’t speak. There was definitely something odd going on. At her name being called, despite Xander’s warning, she launched into an explanation.

“Xander got annoyed at our sex-spell and ripped a page out of my very rare copy of ‘magic, sex and me’ which ruined our entire evening!” She scowled and crossed her arms before continuing, “Now we have to kill it instead of having our sexy time” she pouted.

“We’ll pretend we didn’t hear about a sex spell-”

“Well, I want to hear about it. Can’t get it up, mate?” Spike taunted which only made Xander redden further after Anya’s admittance. Xander stepped as if to hit your vampire but you stepped in the way and wheeled Xander away, changing the subject.

You asked instead about what this demon was like. Anya explained that it was a Scorn-demon. Ridiculously hard to kill and bound to the pages of a book as no mortal prison can hold it. It looked as if you were in for a long night. Which is exactly what you and Spike had planned although for a very different reason.

“If all of us are looking, we’ll find it quicker” You offered, Xander had been embarrassed to explain because of the reason they were doing a spell. But now Anya had told anyone anyway, he was grateful of the help. You got to your feet, ready to follow them out as Spike got up beside you.

“Looks like no bugger’s getting any tonight” Spike muttered, rolling his eyes as you apparently volunteered you both to assist your friend.

“Just working ourselves up… right?” You offered which made him smirk. God, he had been rubbing off on you. You almost felt yourself mirroring his smirk at your words. He wanted to pull you in and kiss you until you admitted just his presence could get you worked up enough alone, but he knew the importance of hiding this from your friends. Which, really was the only reason he didn’t take you right there in the middle of the Bronze.

Instead, you just trailed behind Xander and Anya’s bickering and tried to locate this demon. You called Buffy’s cell and left a message. You knew this was probably going to end with a battle you were unequipped for. You just hoped that you ran into your sister before you ran into the demon. By all accounts he sounded nasty.

As you walked, you and Spike kept sneaking glances at the other when you hoped the others weren’t looking. It was hard, having to maintain this distance when all you wanted to do was reach for him. Show him your affection freely. When you caught the other’s eye, you couldn’t help but smile. You felt so lucky, to have someone that cared so deeply. Someone who wasn’t afraid to share their love so freely.

You wanted to slide your hand in his, tell him just how lucky you felt. Just how much you felt for him, although you were sure he must be sick of how often you told him you loved him. He never was, of course. It was the sweetest music hearing that phrase from your lips. He kissed them a thousand times just to catch the remaining sweetness from your tongue. With those words, nothing should be wasted. He wanted to savour every syllable of your love.

You kept walking until you had to come to an abrupt halt. Dawn turned a corner and crashed straight into you. Turns out, your hopes came true: you did come across your sister first. It just happened to not be the one you expected.

“Oh, I didn’t know you guys were ready for, like, double dating yet” Dawn teased. She, too, had decided that you and Spike had to be dating. She often brought it up to annoy you but she believed it all the same. Spike never corrected her and you had stopped bothering too. You would only come off as defensive and she would tease you for that. You honestly couldn’t win living under the same roof as Dawn, she could be relentless.

Spike leaned in to whisper something in your ear, his lips so close to your ear you could imagine the way they would feel if he leaned in further and pressed against your skin. You smiled at his comment, he always made you laugh. He liked to hear your laugh and it passed the time while he waited for the fight that was coming.

When you looked back up, Willow and Tara had caught up with your group. They gave you a knowing look at how close you were stood to Spike. You wanted to lean on him, inhale deeply and press kisses against the curve of his neck. You loved the way he gripped you closer when you did that. But you had to snap yourself out of this thought at the arrival of your sister. Buffy immediately started giving orders, not before she gave you a warning look for letting Dawn come with you after she scowled at Spike for his mere presence.

“I brought the research – I think there’s a spell, but we’ll have to weaken him first” Willow muttered, frowning at Anya and blaming her for this spell and putting her best friend in danger. 

“The spell needs lovers to complete it. Do you think you could help us Anya? Xander?” Tara asked softly, “But I’m not sure if that’s enough to hold him”

Because the demon was attracted to love and sex, couples were needed to cut off his power at the source. It fed from lovers and by concentrating that power it could reverse and thus weaken the demon within a certain spot.

“Well, if we need couples we have at least three pairs here. Maybe that would be enough?” Willow asked. Making everyone look around to count the pairs. Everyone’s eyes then landed on you and Spike. The last to look was Buffy who raised an eyebrow between you both.

“Does everyone know we’re dating?!”

“Pretty much, sweetie” tara nodded.

“We just didn’t wanna embarrass you. It’s… Spike” Buffy cringed at even the thought of it, “I, uh, thought you would have kinda got it out of your system by now though” Buffy hitched her nose up at the idea of the two of you, but shrugged. She saw it as a meaningless relationship. The kind she had with Parker in her first year of college but more often.

From what you gathered as they didn’t correct her, nobody really thought Spike capable of any kind of meaningful relationship. And with him not being able to actively harm you, they just decided to avoid the topic entirely until one or both of you got bored of the sex. The only one that hadn’t thought anything of your sudden proximity with Spike every time he turned around, was Xander. He really would have said something if he had known. But he still wasn’t convinced now – no matter how often Anya insisted.

You slid your hand into his, now that everybody appeared to know that you were together at least. He smiled at this, looking down at your hands back to your face. This smile, it was softer than he would usually show in front of the Scoobies, it was one only for you. Where he felt such genuine happiness. Such adoration.

As usual, nobody really wanted to discuss your love life (rather just ignore and hope it went away) and so began to look away from you and discuss the demon again. You began following the trail of destruction. He wasn’t so hard to locate really and Buffy immediately attacked him as Willow and Anya set up in a large triangle around the fight. Each couple was at each point of the triangle as the recital occurred. A flash of light surrounded the demon and Buffy before it faded, showing the demon now fighting sluggishly.

You tried to protect Dawn the best you could while Spike and Buffy took it in turns to throw punches at the now marginally weakened demon. You and the others helped when you could but he was so strong even now the spell had worked, that humans barely affected him.

Somehow the demon broke from Spike’s hold and started for Dawn - who he had sensed as the weaker member of your group. You charged in front of your younger sister to try and distract him. This lead to him twisting you and throwing you into the air and crashing into a nearby storefront. You were flung straight against the wall and hit your head quite badly. He watched you falling like a ragdoll, appearing limp due to the blow.

His gut dropped. He left Buffy to the fight. All that mattered now was that you were okay. He had never been so scared. Spike rushed over to you, dropping to the floor so that he could cradle your head in his lap. There were a few seconds where he didn’t know what to do.

But then just as he thought he may have lost you, hope was restored again. You open your eyes, your smile a little dazed as you looked at him from your position in his lap. He looked up to the sky in relief, as if silently thanking the powers. His eyes danced with emotion as he looked back into yours. He wouldn’t know what he would do without you. Couldn’t even imagine it less his heart would begin to ache with phantom loss.

He was so overcome by the thought of losing you that he immediately caught your lips with his. Pouring every single feeling he had ever experienced for you into that one kiss. His hand cupping your cheek, the other on the small of your back – pressing you closer to him. As if this kiss may well be your very last. You reciprocated without hesitation, your lips felt as if they had been moulded just for this very moment. This kiss, it said everything. Promised everything and you smiled into it. Your lips moving against his urgently, insisting he feel your love for him. Even in your weakened state, all of your energy went into kissing him.

In the same moment, Buffy managed to finally slay the beast and Tara and Willow muttered some words that sent him into the book he would now again call home. Buffy whipped around to catch you both kissing so desperately. The rest of the group stopped still and staring too. Every mouth agape in shock. At just how much you appear to feel for the other. This wasn’t just a quick shag when the feeling struck. One wasn’t taking advantage of the other. This was love. The truest kind. And nobody could deny it now, not even Xander.

After you parted, reluctantly on both parts, he took on your weight as you all walked back, everyone except him in silence. He doted on you, pressing a kiss against your temple every few paces – just because he could now in this company. He wanted to offer you all of the comfort he could. He was whispering to you trying to make sure you didn’t fall asleep. He was sure you had a concussion (I mean, you kissed him that way in front of all of your friends without any worries after all).

Buffy didn’t even object when it appeared that Spike was walking their way home. She didn’t know what to think anymore. Everyone could see just how deeply you cared for each other. It was undeniable, even to your older sister.

Spike was just pleased you would make it and be okay. And… he began to get smug that he was finally able to show the slayer that he could access her house this entire time.

[oops-aquarius]

tainted kisses

summary: steve needs some relaxation, which you provide to him

warnings: smut (!!!!), praise kink, slight degradation kink, a little bit of angst cuz a hoe is sad, oral fixation (duh), slight dom/sub dynamics (?), mentions of sadness/depression, tiny mommy kink (like barely there)

pairing: steve rogers x reader

word count: 2.2k

note(s): not edited well at all, also i used a prompt generator to get the promt i used (which is below !!)

prompt: “baths or water (tubs or jacuzzis; hot springs; water houses or steam rooms; the ocean; swimming pools.”

kink: “Oral fixation or fetishization (lips, tongue, or whole mouth; french-kissing; licking; oral displays using food or beer bottles; smoking cigarettes, cigars, or pipes; biting or chewing one's lip(s))”

--

***this is post-endgame except nobody died, cause im a hoe for all of the avengers***

Steve never realized how much he liked things in his mouth. Not always in a sexual way, at least not until after fighting Thanos.

After fighting for so long, bottling up his emotions was not at all how Steve needed to cope. He tried the yoga and meditation route Wanda had so kindly suggested. Yeah, after one session of hot yoga, Steve decided that it wasn't going to happen. Tony, obviously, suggested sex. Said something about it being a “healing experience for the soul”. That’s bullshit were Steve’s first thoughts when that came out of his mouth. Bucky told him to get some goats and raved about how therapeutic it was to raise them. But Steve could barely take care of himself, how would he even take care of a goat? Steve felt a hot sense of hopelessness burn against the back of his eyes as he sat on the floor of his bedroom, back pressed against the adjoined bathroom door.

“Steve?” A soft knock came from the front door. He took his thumb away from his mouth, he had resorted to subconsciously nibbling on the tip of it. Pulling himself off the door and towards the voice, he rubbed his tear-stricken cheeks in attempts to clean himself up a bit before seeing you.

“One sec, Y/N/N.”

When he opened the door, your face softened a bit before the smile that Steve, secretly, loved so much dropped off your face completely. “Stevie, what happened?”

Stevie, a nickname he hated for his entire life. A name that reminded him of the days before the super solider serum where he was a little guy getting beaten up on the streets of Brooklyn. Stevie, a nickname he loved hearing from your caring voice. Nobody else’s. 

“Just tired, Y/N” he sighed, “so,so tired.”

“Stevie,” your voice caught at the back of your throat. Seeing him in so much pain made your life turn upside down. He doesn't deserve to be in pain. “ S’there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

“Just stay with me? Please?”

You took him back into his bed and sat with him, just talking about life until his breathing turned back to normal and he seemed partially-okay. 

“Do you want to take a bath?” you asked, still stroking the blonde strands of his hair.

“Are you saying I smell?” He took his face out of the crook of your shoulder, feigning a look of hurt.

“No, punk, I meant to relax. You seemed pretty shaken up and I just wanted to help. I mean, that’s what I do when I feel down, relax in a bat-”

He cuts you off, “I appreciate it. Really, Y/N, I don’t know many people that are as loving and caring as you, sweetheart.” The nickname made a pang in your heart. You had like the super solider since you had met him, but never felt like he reciprocated the feelings. Even though you both cuddled often, and had movie nights, and he always let you beat him while sparring, and that one time you came down with a stomach bug and he fed you soup and-holy shit. Did Steve like you? “Sweetheart?”

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘A bath does sound nice’. What’s got you so suddenly zoned out?” He says, donning a smirk.

“It’s nothing. Let’s get you into that bath, mister,” you had a faux grumpy look on your face as you got up and walked to the bathroom, starting to fill the white, ceramic bathtub with warm water. “Okay, big boy. You need help getting up or are you okay?”

Rolling his eyes at your inauthentic tone, Steve pushes his tensed frame off the body and managed to stumble into the bathroom, while you following him closely to make sure he doesn't fall over from exhaustion.

“I get it, I’m old, but damn Y/N. I can walk perfectly fine,” He chuckles as he pushes himself up to sit on the counter top.

You start to fill up the bathtub with warm water, adding bubbles and lighting a few scented candles. He looked so pretty, hair sticking out in every direction, lips pink and puffy from biting them, his ocean blue eyes still misty as he looks down at his cuticles, picking them slightly. 

“Okay, I’m gonna leave so you can take this bath,” you say, shutting off the faucet, “Got it?”

“Y/N?”

“Yes, Stevie.”

“Stay, please.” His eyes were watering more than earlier. He had those puppy dog eyes, lip quivering as his voice cracked and wavered even with just a few words. He looked so vulnerable, how could you say no to him?

“Of course, Steve. I mean, the bubbles with kind of cover everything. I’ll just sit next to the tub with you, alright?” You awkwardly giggled and scratched the back of your neck. He nodded, hopping off of the counter and starting to undress himself with a wobble. “Stevie, you’re shaking like a leaf, let me help you.”

His eyes never met yours as you helped him pull his t-shirt over his head and looped your delicate fingers through the waistband of his sweatpants, dragging them down his muscular thighs. “You’re not gonna finish your job, doll?”

His boxers. The only clothes he had left on were his grey boxers. You wanted to give him privacy and not look, especially in such a broken and vulnerable state. But god, you could see the outline of his partially-hard cock through the soft cotton. You thought about what it would be like to have your mouth around his hard length, chocking on it as he rammed himself into the back of your throat.

“Ummm, I just--I thought--I mean I can---Only if you want--” The dirty thoughts clouded your brain. It made speaking a speaking a sentence almost impossible as your mouth watered just thinking about his cock.

“It was a joke, sweetheart,” he laughed heartily, “You’re too adorable.”

Pulling his boxers down his legs, he waddled tiredly over to the tub before stepping in. He groaned in pleasure at the feeling of the warm water encapsulating his exhausted body. You imagined that’s how he’d groan if you sucked his cock so hard he was seeing stars.

You were still facing the door, like you were as Steve got completely undressed. You knew if you turned around and look at him, naked and at ease, you’d jump his bones in a heartbeat. “Come sit with me, Y/N”

And you did. You turned around cautiously, like you expected, the bubbles covered his body enough for you to be able to handle yourself as you sat down next to the tub. You grabbed his hand away from his lips, running your soft fingers over his rough calloused ones. “I always see you biting your nails or cuticle or lips or your pens. Why?”

He sighed, “I’m not sure, I guess it just distracts me?” He said it more like it was a question rather than a statement. “I guess I don’t truly know why I do it, I guess I just enjoy having things in my mouth.”

You could read Steve like a book, his pupils blown with lust, his lip stuck between his teeth, a blush heating up his cheeks. You took a leap of faith.

“Yeah, like what?”

“You.”

His lips were on yours in a flurry, it took a second for you to react, but as soon as you did it felt amazing. Neither of you seemed to care about the water splashing over you as his hands trailed up your body, tugging at the hem of your shirt.

He pulls away panting, “F-Fuck, Y/N, I need you. Please. Oh my god I need you so bad,” His eyes looked as if they were welling up with tears and he looked so pretty still in the relaxing bubble bath, whimpering and whining for you. 

“God, I need you too, baby,” you stop to look in his eyes sincerely, “Are you sure you want this? I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want to do or that you will regret.” Your hand caresses his cheek.

“Just get in here with me and I’ll show you how much I want you,” he whispered, “Need you, really.”

You sighed before your hands moved shakily to take off your t shirt. As much as you wanted this, you were still scared of how the ripped super solider would feel about you and your body, As soon as your shirt was off, Steve was whimpering, dipping his hand into the soapy water to massage his aching cock. This only spurred you to take off your clothes and join him faster. 

“Did I say you could touch yourself, puppy?” Your stern voice caught him off-guard, making him pause his actions with a look of fear on his face. You step into the bathtub, straddling him. Your nails raked up his milky white thighs, trailing up his body admiring the beauty of it. “Y’Know I was planning on being nice to you because you’ve been so good to me, but you might need to be punished, baby? Do you need to punshied like a brat?”

He mewled, bowing his head in shame. You could feel him growing harder and harder by the second and you were starting to go crazy with the empty feeling inside of you that on he could fill. “No, ma’am. I’ll be good, I swear!”

“Mmmm, that’s my good boy.” Your hands slid up his chest and rested on his cheeks, hearing him preen at your praise, as you repositioned yourself over his cock. “Are you sure you want this?”

“If you dont ride me into next week right fucking now I’m going to scream, Y/N,” He breathed out with a chuckle, Grabbing your thighs, he helps you sink down on his cock. Both of you were moaning and whimpering messes by the time you were sitting at this base of him, trying to get adjusted to his large size. 

Hot tears burned at the back of his eyes as soon as you lifted yourself up off of him, only leaving the tip of him inside of you, and slamming back down on his dick. 

“Baby-please,” he whimpered, “n-need, shit, need your fingers, bad.” 

You were confused, slowing down a bit to make sure he was okay. But his puppy dog eyes showed that he was okay. Slowly taking your wrist from his cheek, he puts your fingers in his warm mouth. Moaning around them and swirling his tongue around them. He did it the same way you always dreamed about sucking his dick, chocking and gagging on his length.

“Yeah, you’re such a needy little slut for me, for this pussy. Look at you, so ruined and fucked out just because I’m fucking you.” He moaned sensually at your words making your core tighten impossibly. 

You had gotten a good idea as you were riding him. Slowly, you start to thrust your hand in and out of his mouth, watching the saliva dribble out of the corners of his mouth as he choked on you. The band in your tummy starts tightening as you feel yourself getting close. 

“Shit, fuck, baby, I’m gonna come. Oh my god, you’re make me come with your beautiful cock, puppy. So good for me, aren’t you?” Your free hand dips into the water, cupping his balls and rolling them around your soft palm.

He nods, choking on your nimble finger yet again his you massage his sensitive balls. “Gonna come,” he slurred and spit around you.\, “almost there.”

“I didn’t” you moaned as you feel his balls tighten, fall back down on his cock at a faster pace, “give you permission to do that. I thought you were going to be good for me?”

“I am” he spluttered loudly, “i am good, I swear. Just please let me come. I need it, oh shit, mommy.”

The name went straight to your core, making you grow weak as you feebly give him permission to come as you come undone with one more bounce on his large member. His hands come up to grope your breasts as he come with hot spurts inside of your tight cunt. 

“Oh my god,” you stifle a giggle as you stand up on shaky legs. You wordlessly helped him out of the tub and wrapped him in a white towel, walking him to bed while you dried yourself off. Collapsing on the bed with a grunt, the solider hollds out his hand to you, signalling you to lay down with him. You could easily tell he was still coming down from his sex high, starting to regain his self back.

“I dont know what possessed me to,” he pauses, trying to figure out a way to word the rest of his sentence, “to suck, I guess, on your hand. I’m sorry, Y/N, that was really weird of me.”

“What do’ya mean, baby? Having an oral fixation isn’t something to be ashamed of.” The words make him smile with droopy eyes, tucking his head into your neck and starting to fall asleep, happy and comfortable, cuddling you.

“And to be honest, puppy. I think it’s really hot.”

[obeythedemons]

Surrounded [Obey Me! Barbatos/Lance]

Note: A bit of a weird abstract piece? Mentions death, nightmare, religious themes. Just me dealing with my traumas, it’s fine.

Obey Me! Masterlist

--

He stood in the center of the room. Bodies were lying on the ground surrounding him. The room felt like it was spinning. Spinning so he could see the faces of those that had left him. Those that were close to leaving him. Until he was all alone.

He fell to his knees, grasping for something to ground him, but the only thing that fell through his hands was air. He screamed into the void. Not a soul would hear his pleas to make the pain stop. The pleas to rip out his heart because he’d rather feel nothing than the pain that was bleeding from it.

He felt the tears falling from his eyes crash onto the back of his hand. Were the tears going to erode away at his skin, into the muscles, down to the bone until there was nothing left? He tried to sob harder so that he would disappear into nothing. His body hurt, his lungs burned, but why wasn’t he dying? Why was he still left all alone? When those came and went into his life so fast that the pain just kept adding and adding. The bodies kept piling up more and more.

“Stop!” he screamed, pleading for anyone to answer his prayer.

It was not God that heard his prayer.

Arms wrapped around him and pulled him close. They clung to him as he wept into their chest. He tried to pull away, expecting them to wilt and die just like all of the others. He expected them to go up in flames in a tragic accident like the others. He expected to be left all alone with his heart ripped into shreds when they passed through his life like they were just there for a brief visit.

“I won’t leave you,” the voice told him. “I won’t ever leave you.”

He looked up between the sobs and was met with the greenest of eyes. The type of green that sent life pouring into the strongest of trees, the trickiest of vines, and the soft moss on the forest floors. Strands of aqua hair cascaded down the man’s face. Aqua that sent water rushing through the rivers and into the oceans. He looked down at the man’s lips that spoke words of healing to his shattered heart, his broken-down soul. He felt life pour into him that he had once forsaken from himself.

The one that heard his prayer was not God.

The demon held onto his hands and intertwined their fingers, interlocking their souls together to be forever. Warmth spread through his body as it waged from the coldness that has swallowed him whole. The darkness he was entangled by vanquished by one that was of the night. A lightness settled in him. His tears dried as he brought himself closer to the one that was not God.

He did not care that his prayer was not heard by God. His prayer was heard by someone who he loved more and who held more power to him.

Lance felt something brush against his cheek. Slowly, he opened his eyes to be met by the soft smile of the one in his dreams. The human covered his mouth in a yawn before he returned the smile back to the demon.

“Good morning,” Lance spoke in just above a whisper.

“Good morning to you,” Barbatos responded. “I’m sorry if I woke you, but you seemed to be having a nightmare.”

“It was one,” Lance admitted to something that occurred fairly often. “But then you showed up and it was better.”

Barbatos moved closer in bed to the human. “I’m glad that my presence in your dreams is a source of comfort.”

“You’re always a source of comfort for me,” Lance murmured as he too moved closer. He wrapped an arm around Barbatos and held onto him. “You will always be there, right?”

Barbatos returned the gesture and pulled Lance to be flushed against him. “I swear it.”

[the-cult-of-russo]

No Going Back

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader 

Request : good morning. i wanna request number 8.  “Maybe you should just leave now.” angst/fighting dialogue. to be correct it is for billy russo right?

A/N: yes it's my Billy boy :') he a lil soft in this though but also an asshole lmaooo not gonna lie, this one had me swept up in the emotion. It hit quite close to home and now I'm sad :') 

Warnings: cursing, angst, sadness and heartbreak. Billy fucked up big time lol

Your hands were shaking as you slammed the door to your apartment. Tears stained your cheeks and you kicked your heels off before storming to your bedroom, grabbing a duffel bag and starting to pack his things that he'd left around. Heartbroken didn't even cover it. 

You knew this would happen, it's why you fought against it for so long. But you were stupid and ended falling for his bullshit and now you were a mess. 

You and Billy had been together officially for 7 months. You'd met a year ago at a bar and hit it off, but when he tried to take you home you'd denied him. That apparently piqued his interest even more. He'd always be at the bar every Friday when you went and it was always easy to just be yourself around him. You didn't take him up on his offer and he would offer every time. He never made it a secret that he wanted you. 

But as the months drew on, you both got to know each other more and it became a sort of friendship. You had to admit you felt something when you looked forward to seeing him. He'd asked you once why you were so against it and you'd been pretty blunt with him. You knew of his reputation and you weren't into it. You didn't do one night stands or casual sex. You wanted a relationship, someone to settle down with. You wanted something real. You told him you didn't think he was capable of that and he'd break your heart. 

Five months into knowing each other and he'd switched from just wanting to fuck you to wanting to actually date you and you'd still put up a fight. But as your feelings for him grew, he wore you down. The moment you agreed to that date, which he'd been over the moon about, everything changed. 

It had been so easy to be with him. He treated you like a queen, was more affectionate than you'd have thought, and you enjoyed each other's company. He was busy with Anvil a lot so you didn't see him every day but he'd call if he couldn't see you or send you sweet texts. He swore to you up and down that he'd never hurt you, never do what you'd thought he would do when you turned him down all those times. 

You'd see the looks women gave him when you went out together or were at an event as his date and sometimes you'd feel insecure. But he only had eyes for you it seemed and it reassured you. It lulled you into a false sense of security that he'd actually changed. That he actually cared about you. 

But you were wrong. So very fucking wrong and now you were paying for it. You'd been having dinner with a friend you hadn't seen in a while when it happened. Your eyes finding Billy across the restaurant. He was sat with a pretty blonde, very up close and intimate as they whispered god knows what to each other. You'd felt your heart crack but tried to deny it. It was just flirting, nothing more. But then… he'd leaned in and kissed her. 

You'd shot out of your seat so fast the chair fell over and ran out of the place like someone had lit a fire up your ass. And you knew he'd seen you because you heard him shouting your name as you jumped into a cab and left. 

You hated yourself for being surprised at what he'd done. You'd told him this was exactly how it would go but he'd swore to you. And you allowed yourself to buy into his bullshit because you loved him. 

Most of his things packed, you padded over to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine, pouring a large glass. You swigged it in one and felt the warmth bloom in your chest. It did little to ease the hopeless sorrow that consumed you though. 

There was a rough knock at your door and you heard Billy call your name loudly. You tensed, heart breaking all over again as the tears seemed to be never ending. You didn't want to talk to him, to even look at him. But this was it. You couldn't stay with him, not now. You'd never be able to trust him again. You knew you had to tell him it was done so you could lick your wounds and heal from the pain. 

"Y/N, please… open the door," Billy begged from the other side. You walked over, unlocking it but not opening it as you stormed back off to your bedroom. You knew he'd let himself in. You heard his heavy footsteps entering as you shoved another of his shirts in the bag, one you liked to sleep with.

"Can we talk?" He asked hesitantly. 

"No," you bit out, eyes snapping to him. His face fell when he saw you crying and he took a tentative step into the room.

"Please, Y/N, let me explain," he frowned. You laughed but it held no joy. Only a deep rooted pain that was latched onto your soul. 

"Explain? Really? What, you gonna say you tripped and your mouth landed on hers?! I saw it with my own eyes, Billy! You don't need to explain anything!" You roared, pure pain lacing your words.

He clenched his jaw as he shook his head, eyes glassy as he stared at you. 

"I'm-I'm sorry," he started softly,  reaching out to grab your arm but you smacked it away harshly. He looked like a kicked puppy and you hated it. He didn't get to be upset about this. 

"How long have you been fucking her then?" You asked snidely as you grabbed the duffel bag, holding it in a death grip. 

"I haven't fucked her," he muttered quietly. You snorted deprecatingly and he bit down on his lower lip.

"Yet?" You asked knowingly. His guilty glance to the floor told you everything you needed to know. 

"How long, Billy? How long have you been cheating on me?" You asked, your voice wavered but your gaze had nothing but fire in it and he shifted where he stood. He couldn't look at you. 

"A month. It was always one night, I never went back to someone," he frowned. Pain clawed its way through your chest and you threw the bag at him hard. He caught it but stumbled a little and he looked at you forlornly. 

"Well, I guess that makes it better then, right?" You asked coldly and he flinched. 

You stormed past him back to the kitchen area and he followed quickly. 

"Please listen to me, Y/N. I need to make this right," he pleaded desperately. You whirled around to face him, face flushed and tear stained and you felt like you wanted to scream. 

"Why? Why did you just decide after 6 months together to do this to me? You promised me, Billy! I knew this would happen but you fought for this! For us! Why?! Just so you could break my heart?!" You bellowed, a mix of anger and utter despair in your tone. 

His lower lip quivered and he bit down on it, staring at the floor.

"I never wanted to hurt you. I swear, I didn't. I just…" his voice cracked as his teary eyes landed on you. 

"Maybe you should just leave now," you uttered. Your whole body was trembling and you felt sick. You couldn't stand to look at him. He stepped closer to you, dropping the bag on the floor but you took a step back. It would be far too easy to fall for his bullshit again and if he touched you, you didn't think you'd be able to get him to leave. 

It felt like pure pain ripped through your chest, the weight of the world crashing down around you. You slumped onto a dining chair as a raw sob clawed its way out. Billy was kneeling in front of you in seconds, his own cheeks now damp as he cupped your cheeks. You moved your head from his grip and shook your head. 

"I loved you, you know that?" You whispered brokenly though your tears. You'd never outright said it, mostly in fear of his reaction. But it had all gone to shit anyway. His lip trembled again, scrunching his nose up a little as he shook his head. He looked utterly devastated and it made you angry so you continued.

"I loved you with everything I had. I trusted you with my life. I ripped out my own beating heart and willingly gave it to you because you swore to me you wouldn't do this. You just took it and stomped all over it. How could you do this to me?" Your last words were strained as the tears flowed freely.

"Please let me fix this," he begged helplessly. He was crying openly now, not trying to hide it as he gazed at you from the floor. 

"You can't fix it. I'll never be able to trust you again. It's not just the sex, Billy! You've been lying to me for a month. All those business meetings or times you were away? And you just… you'd come back to me with a smile and tell me sweet words. Looked me in the fucking eye and not feel guilty," you choked out. He shook his head vigorously, hands clasping yours so tight you couldn't pull them away.

"You've got no idea how guilty I felt. It's been eatin' me up from the inside out," he lamented.

"Why would you…? What was it? You just got bored of me? Decided you didn't want me anymore? You should have just ended this because it would hurt less than this," you wept pitifully. He shook his head, clutching your hands tighter.

"Don't… Don't say that, I do want you. I know I don't deserve you, I know I'm an asshole. And… and maybe I shoulda left it alone when you told me this would happen, but I was selfish and I-I couldn't. You were never like the others. I knew that from the moment we met. But then… then things were gettin' serious and I just… I freaked out and went back to my default 'cause I didn't know how to…'' he cried, screwing his face up as he hung his head. 

You sobbed as you stood, his hands falling away and you moved to lean against the table as he stood. 

"It would be bad enough if I'd just got with you in the first place and you did this. But I wanted to avoid this. I tried so hard but you kept on at it. And it hurts so much more because you promised me you wouldn't do this and I believed you. I thought you'd changed, that you…" you ran a hand through your hair, tugging on it as the tears wouldn't stop.

He stepped to you, grasping your face in both hands and you couldn't bring yourself to fight it despite the pain it brought you. His endless eyes were all consuming, his cheeks wet from his own tears.

"Please… please, Y/N, don't do this. Let me make it right," he begged tearfully. 

"Without trust, we have nothing. Everytime you're on your phone I'd wonder if you were talking to another woman. When you're out I'd be paranoid about who you were with. I can't live like that, Billy. I can't live my life in… in an anxious, jealous haze. That's not a relationship," you whispered. 

He made a pained noise and it squeezed your heart so hard you thought it might implode. 

"I was never good enough for you. I knew that. But I wanted… I wanted to try and be-be a good man… for you. And I fucked up so bad and I just…" his words trailed off into a hopeless sob and you squeezed your eyes shut. You wished there was a way to fix this but there wasn't. You wouldn't be in one of those relationships without trust. Checking your partner's phone and always checking in. It would break you.

"You need to leave, Billy," your words were a mere breath and his hands on your face tightened for a moment before they fell to his sides. He looked completely broken and you were sure you looked the same. He opened his mouth before promptly closing it, his jaw ticking as he moved away and pushed the heels of his palms to his eyes. 

You wrapped your arms around yourself like it would protect you from the pain and glared at the floor. You could still feel his gaze burning into you. You glanced at him as he grabbed the bag and slung it over his shoulder. You had to fight the urge to grab onto him as he walked to your door. You felt like you were dying. 

He grabbed the handle but stopped, not looking at you as his body tensed.

"I want you to know… I love you too," his pained words felt like a punch to the gut and you covered your mouth with a hand but it did little to stop the noise that left your lips. He looked over his shoulder at you, still holding the door handle.

"I know that… right now you probably don't believe me, but I do. And I'm sorry. I-I never wanted you to get hurt. You deserve so much better," he muttered despondently. With that, he opened the door and slipped out of your apartment. Of your life. 

You fell to the floor as heaving sobs left your chest. It would have been easier if he came here being an asshole. Cold and emotionless like you knew he could be at times. But seeing him, his emotions so raw and on display, it cut you deeper than any knife could. And you believed him. You knew him well enough to believe that he fell in love with you and freaked out. You knew it would happen which is why you'd turned him down at the start. You believed he never wanted to hurt you. And you wished you could forgive him. You saw how much it hurt him too but you couldn't. You couldn't get over the betrayal and you didn't think you ever could. 

He'd sabotaged what you both had because of his inability to deal with what he felt and the bitter knowledge that if he'd just accepted it, how different your future would be with him, it left a sour taste in your mouth. Billy had opened up to you a lot in your time together about his past and you knew how much it had messed him up. You knew it left him struggling with emotions and relationships and you felt for him. For the lost boy who'd never felt love and didn't know how to cope with it. But nothing could erase the heartbreak. The hurt that he'd given you. Because even if you'd one day be able to forgive him, you'd never be able to forget.

[astro-rain]

delicate; b.barnes

chapter twenty - “collateral damage”

delicate masterlist

word count: 2k

synopsis: bucky and y/n deal with the emotional fallout of her departure from wakanda.

pairings: bucky barnes x fem!reader

warnings: mildly suggestive content, nothing explicit, 18+ readers please.

The flight home was wretched. Sleeping on the jet was impossible. Every time she shut her eyes she saw his face. If her mind did somehow manage to drift off to sleep, Y/N dreamed of him and woke up trying not to rip her hair out.

"We can still stay in contact, right?" Bucky asked as they were walking back from the waterfall.

They had left their catharsis by the water, still upset, but now calmer and more logical.

"I don't think so..."

"What? Why? It's not like we don't have the technology to do it."

"I know, but.." Y/N trailed off, trying to think of a sensible excuse.

Obviously they could stay in contact if they wanted. But any kind of phone call would be able to be tracked or recorded. That, and she didn't want him to hang on to someone who betrayed him. She couldn't imagine the guilt she'd have hearing Bucky's "I miss you's" or "Baby doll's" from miles away, knowing she lied to him.

"You don't even have a phone..."

"That's an easy problem to fix."

"I know... I just think you should focus on the rest of your healing, and... you know, I'll have a lot of work once I get back...." she took a breath. "I don't know if it's super healthy for us to cling on to each other when it... may be better to move on..."

"Move on?"

"Yeah..."

Bucky stopped walking and turned to face her. They both stood still and he stared at her, confused, as if he was trying to figure something out. He knew her well. She was scared he'd see right through her.

"So let me get this straight. When you're here we can talk all the time and... plenty of other things. But when you're away we can't even call each other?"

"Bucky..."

"That's not all, is it?"

She sighed. "I'm just... worried... about- like-... getting in trouble. If someone overhears or tracks a phone call...What if someone finds out where the 'Winter Soldier' is and comes here to exact revenge?"

That was partly true. She'd never want anyone bad to find out where he was. But no one was tracking her phone calls; she wasn't really a person of interest. In all likelihood, it probably wasn't something she'd have to be terribly worried about.

However, if anyone overheard or saw Bucky on the phone, they'd know it was her, and she doubted anything she could say would convince them that she didn't tell him about the arm.

Or maybe no one would find out. She just didn't want to take the chance. The last time she took a chance, this happened. She wasn't willing to do it again.

He stared at her with dejected eyes. "You know you don't have to worry about me. I'll be okay."

She rested her hands on his forearms and laughed sadly. "Bucky, I don't think I'm ever not gonna worry about you."

He was already in her heart. She didn't think he could leave now.

He let his eyelids fall shut. "I really don't want you to go."

She closed her eyes as well and let her forehead rest against the top of his chest.

"I know. I'm sorry. I don't want to leave you either. But you're gonna do so well, even without me. And every day I'll wake up and think 'wow this man is sexy and has good coping mechanisms! I wish I was him!'"

In the midst of his sadness, she made him laugh. It was a despondent, quiet laugh, but she managed to lift his mood all the same - even if just a little bit. She'd always make everything better.

He gazed down at her, eyes heavy, and without even thinking about it... "I love you."

She looked down at the grass below her feet. "Buck..."

"I do. I'm sorry but I do."

She wrapped her arms around the middle of his back, pressing her face into the crook of his neck. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in tight, one arm up her back and the other cradling her head.

In the tiniest whisper, she let the truth flow out from her chest. "I love you, too."

The clouds provoked her, so peaceful and quiet, while her head was a big, loud mess. Y/N leaned her head on the window, glaring at them and wondering if she should've said what she did. That she loved him. Internally, she debated whether or not it would make things worse. But she wasn't going to see him again; she might as well have left him with the truth.

Time was lost to her. She thought she would be landing soon, but she couldn't be sure. She couldn't be sure of anything anymore.

-

Bucky sat at the lake - their lake - and just stared into the water. It felt so strange to him, that she was gone. One minute she was here and now he was just... alone.

It was so quiet. Too quiet. Of course being alone was quiet, but after Y/N left, the air just felt empty.

He wished he could talk to her. Whenever he was upset, all he wanted to do was talk to her.

"So, is this... d-do we say goodbye now?" he asked when they got back to his hut.

"Yeah..." she sighed. "yeah."

"Are you going back to Europe?"

"Yes. Belgium. Haven't been in my apartment in forever."

"Belgium," he wondered. "It's nice there. Safe. What are you gonna do for work?"

"Probably just continue where I left off on my research. Fancy brain stuff, ya'know?"

He grinned, proud. "My smart girl."

She looked around her, as if watching for something. Or someone.

"Buck, I think I have to go now."

"Just one more minute? Please. I wanna remember you like this. Not sad and crying."

Y/N smiled, grabbed his hands, and kissed his knuckles. Both flesh and metal. Because they were both part of him and she loved him. All of him.

Then, she placed both his hands on either side of her face. Softly she said, "remember me like this," before bringing their lips together.

He looked down at his vibranium arm, twisting his wrist to watch how the plates whirred.

Since the first moment he put it on, he had been using it to be gentle, loving, and affectionate. This arm was good. This arm wasn't used for death and destruction and violence.

With this arm he held her, kissed her, loved her. And now she was gone. And now it felt like dead weight.

— ONE WEEK LATER —

Whenever Bucky looked at his bionic arm he saw her. It began to make him sad.

His hair had been getting longer and longer. He could cut it now, now that he had two arms. But every time he tried, all he could do was stare at the arm and hear her voice in his head.

"That's your heart. That's you. You're all heart, Buck. You're so deeply, wonderfully human. All the way to your bones."

That was the first time he expressed real distress about missing a limb, he recalled. That was the first time they kissed. Funny how that transition was made, funny how she could remedy some of his worst emotions.

His days were boring and uneventful and nearly silent. He sat alone a lot. There was no laughter anymore, none of her laughter. There was no more holding, no more kissing, no more loving. The arm just felt... wrong? Like what it was born from had died.

-

In Belgium, Y/N felt incredibly uncomfortable. She knew she just needed to adjust to the change, after getting to used to life in Wakanda - life with Bucky. Her vacant apartment didn't feel as homey.

It had been, what, a year and a half? About a year and a half since she had been home. About a year and a half spent with Bucky.

Her apartment seemed so... barren. Void of life. And cold. She was used to the Wakandan heat. When she closed and locked the door behind her, she looked at the golden square that the sun cast through her window. It reminded her of that heat.

Y/N sighed, cursing her very own hippocampus for providing her with memory.

"God, I wish you had an AC in here."

She was in his bed. Well, she was on top of him, straddling him, in his bed.

"Is it hot or is it just you?" he joked, poking at her sides and trying to not pout at the loss of her lips.

"Ha. Ha," she rolled her eyes and brought her face back to his.

"Wait," Bucky said and gently pulled her face away to examine it. "You are a little warm."

"It's okay," she quickly tried to resume their previous activity.

"Hold on-" he got cut off as Y/N kept pecking his lips over and over.

"I have-"

Kiss.

"An idea-"

Kiss.

Lightly he pushed her shoulders away, nearly giggling. "Stop it! Just wait a second!"

Bashful, she conceded. "What?"

"Just-" he reached out and put the vibranium hand on her forehead, effectively cooling her down a bit. She closed her eyes and flashed a goofy smile.

"That feels nice."

Then, suddenly, he wrapped both his arms around her back and flipped them over so that he was on top. He smirked.

"Oh yeah, you just wait."

She hung her keys up and took a deep breath, absorbing the emptiness. This was her new normal; she just had to get used to it.

-

"I just- I don't really... I don't think I need it," Bucky tried to explain.

Want it, he thought. I don't want it. I can't stand to even look at it.

"You don't need it?" Shuri asked.

"Yeah, it-uh it takes a bit of getting used to and I think I just need a break. And I wouldn't want to damage it so... figured it's better with you."

He was better at lying than he gave himself credit for.

"Okay," Shuri accepted his answer and began to detach the bionic arm. "But you let me know if it's uncomfortable or painful anywhere so I can adjust it. Alright?"

"Alright. Thank you."

Finally he was rid of it- that cursed metal weighing down on his soul. Maybe now he could focus on other things. Maybe. It didn't seem likely...

However, as the days drew closer, it did make him slightly - only slightly -  less nervous about the trigger word experiment. Now he didn't have a weapon attached to him. Though he reckoned he was the weapon.

No. He wasn't supposed to think like that. He knew Y/N wouldn't want him to. He knew she would say something like, "You aren't what they tried to make you into. You're you and all HYDRA's awfulness can't change the good at your core. My Bucky. You're perfect."

He'd deny to high heavens that he was the farthest thing from perfect. Bucky had no clue how she could say such things. But her conviction never faltered.

Soon enough the day came. The experiment. All he could think about was how she was supposed to be there. He didn't want to do this without her.

But now, he found himself sitting at at a fire on some mountain with one of the Doras. It was dark and it was scary. He was scared.

"It is time," said Ayo.

Nevermind want. He wasn't sure if he could do this without her.

"Are you sure about this?"

"I won't let you hurt anyone."

He was still scared. He still didn't trust himself. But, staring into the fire, he thought back to a past conversation.

"You don't have to trust yourself. That's hard enough as it is and Hydra didn't make it any easier. You just trust me, alright? ... And I will not let anything happen to you."

Bucky didn't have to trust himself. He just had to trust her. Even if she wasn't here, even if she was on another continent, all he had to do was trust her. When Ayo began reciting the trigger words, that was the one thing thing he held onto. The one thing that kept him afloat.

His trust in her.

delicate taglist: @emmojoy @bakugouswh0r3 @thefridgeismybestie @strivingforelegance @ilovespideyyy @xpurpleglitter @bluelakeee @darkacademic2 @eclipsedplanet @paradisedixon @crazy-beautiful @coffee--writes @lilithknight1111 @buckybarnesishot310 @softladyhours @alwayssandy @those-sea-green-eyes @hero-ically @devilswaldorf @cc13723things @small-death-and-codeine @avengersgirllorianna @cataves @thatbitchsposts @talktomeaboutthestars @surrealpsycho @headheartbellarke @bubbly-moonwarrior @bluemoon-icecream @buckeyecreates @augustbucky @itsthemaree @undiadeestos