#was ever truly happy without that always-there feeling of dread. i wish i had the guts to kill myself but truthfully i dont think i ever

[ouellette]

i need to be euthanized

[pretzel-box]

hi hi, so so sosslsk, I wanted to request that like GN!Reader was Sebastian's lover right? But recently we have been manipulated/ brainwashed to work with Urbanshade; etc, until we needed to have a talk with sebastian of the 9 people's deaths, and he is like tryna talk us out of it basically?

(this is where he is human before turning into fishe man, RAHHAHSGSHS)

Tags: Angst, Established Relationship [Marriage], GN!Reader & Human Sebastian. Happens before Sebastian gets turned into a fishstick.

Words: 1,1k

The golden watch on your wrist ticked with a steady rhythm, mocking the whirlwind of thoughts racing through your mind as the elevator descended. Each second dragged out in slow motion, stretching your anticipation and dread to unbearable lengths.

5.

The polished surface of the watch glinted under the soft lighting of the elevator, reflecting a time that you wished could speed up or rewind—anything to change the direction of the day. You had always taken pride in your job, a prestigious position at Urbanshade’s law department. Power flowed through your hands like water, bending situations to your favor. Today, though, your influence felt useless, suffocating you as it pushed down on your chest.

4.

The office had been in turmoil ever since the terrifying news broke. The murder of a colleague, followed by eight more brutal killings, had left a scar on the entire building. The once lively chatter of coworkers was now replaced by grim silence, as everyone buried themselves in paperwork, avoiding eye contact, avoiding thoughts of their own mortality. How could someone kill nine people with such callousness…

3.

But through it all, no matter how hard your workday was, Sebastian was your anchor once you stepped into your shared apartment. Your freshly married husband, your love. He had been your rock, comforting you in ways no one else could, understanding you without words. His presence was a beacon of light in your darkened days. Each night, no matter how draining work has been, Sebastian would welcome you home with open arms, making the world feel safe again. He reminded you how precious life was and how grateful you were to still be living it. There was no denying it,killings were terrible, but at least, you thought, Sebastian was there, safe—alive.

2.

But that sense of safety had shattered when you saw the file, that Urbanshad gave you.

Sebastian’s face. The man you’d shared your life with, your hopes and dreams, stared back at you from a police mugshot. The eyes you adored, blacked out by a censor bar, only deepened the sick feeling in your stomach. The file had slipped from your fingers, its weight dragging your world down with it. Paper truly never felt so heavy.

Sebastian wasn’t just involved, not a witness or a bystander, no,—he was the killer. Your husband, the man who made you feel protected and cherished, had ended nine lives in cold blood and pretended that nothing happened. He had lived his happy little life with yours while 9 whole families lost someone dear. How could the person who breathed life into you be the person that ended others so easily…

1.

The elevator doors opened. You stepped into the dimly lit hallway, feeling as though the ground had disappeared beneath your feet.

"He is in here," a man spoke up harshly, his voice cutting through the quiet. He stood beside a heavy metallic door, dressed in a security uniform. With a gloved hand, he fished out an orange key card and swiped it quickly through the scanner. The door clicked open with a mechanical whirr, but you barely noticed. Your focus was locked on the black-haired man cuffed to the table inside the room, two guards standing ominously behind him.

Sebastian.

Your mind struggled to reconcile the image before you with the person you knew.

Your Sebastian—the one who promised you the sun and the moon, who always listened when you vented, who made you home-cooked meals and did your skincare routine with you every morning—was now sitting there, bound, and accused of unspeakable crimes. His face was gaunt, his eyes red and puffy, fresh tears glistening on his cheeks. And even like this, broken and in despair, he still looked precious in your eyes.

It all didn’t make sense. It couldn’t.

The file had said it all—Sebastian was the one responsible for the brutal murders. The evidence was ironclad, but seeing him now, so broken, planted a seed of doubt in your heart. Your mind tried to hold on to the horrific details you had read, but your heart—the part that loved him—was pulling in the opposite direction.

You stepped closer, the weight of the moment pressing down on you, making it hard to breathe.

"Sebastian..." Your voice cracked, and his head snapped up, his tear-filled eyes locking onto yours. The mutual understanding started to break slowly and you really wanted to try and hold it stable.

"Please, you have to believe me," he rasped, his voice hoarse with desperation. "I didn’t do it. I swear, I didn’t kill anyone. I’m being framed."

The words hung in the air between you, thick with emotion. He pulled against the cuffs, his eyes pleading. He yanked his body to the front, trying to reach you on the other side of the table. Yet, somehow, you took a step back, scared. The men behind him pulled him back forcefully onto his chair. "You know me. You know I could never do something like this. I—I'm being set up, they want to pin it all on me. But you, you have to believe me. Please. You are my wife, you know me!"

Your heart thudded painfully in your chest. His voice—so familiar, so full of pain—shook you to your core. This was the man who had held you through your darkest nights, who had been there for every milestone, who had never once let you down. Could he really be capable of such evil?

"But the file..." you whispered, fighting to maintain a hold on logic. "The evidence—"

"The evidence is fake!" Sebastian interrupted, his voice rising in desperation. "They’re manipulating everything. I don’t know how, but they’re doing this to destroy me. I don’t have much time, but you—you have to believe me. I’m innocent."

Your mind raced, torn between the cold facts you had read and the person sitting in front of you, begging for your trust. You could see the fear in his eyes, the same eyes that had always been so full of love for you.

The longer you looked at him, the harder it became to hold on to the accusations. How could the man who had been your everything, your safe place, be capable of such cruelty? Every fiber of your being wanted to believe him, to trust in the Sebastian you knew.

You took a breath, shaky and shallow. "Sebastian... I—" you paused, your voice trembling, the weight of the moment suffocating. "I believe you."

Tears spilled down Sebastian’s face as he sagged in relief. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Thank you, I knew you would."

“But Ink doesn't lie.”

[angelstate]

InfatuatedBoyfriend!Konig x Wandering!Reader.

InfatuatedBoyfriend!Konig who holds you dearly in his heart, has never loved anything or anyone as much as he loves you. You are the epitome of his existence, the sole reason he wakes up every day and doesn’t dread the passing of time, the getting older, the living a fulfilling life outside of the battlefield, away from violence and death.

and he doesn’t think you know the extent his love goes for you, he doesn’t think you are aware of just how deeply he feels for you to the point sometimes the pressure in his heart from all the love he has for you makes him feel like his chest it’s about to burst. 

you love him, he knows you do. And it feels like being loved by a God, like the creator of his purpose in life is continuously reinforcing he is living correctly, how he is meant to live, and it’s as gratifying as it is scary because there is so much to life and all he sees is you. and he knows he would die a happy man only having met you, but he fears your gaze won’t meet enough places and be amazed by enough things to feel as fullied as he feels when looking at you.

you have an insatiable sense of wonder and he knows he (as big as he is) isn’t enough to satiate your senses, and your eyes will continue to fall onto everything that calls out to you to be discovered, it’s never other people, but is things, places, is everything, is nothing. 

InfatuatedBoyfriend!Konig sometimes can't help but overthink, finding himself imagining that maybe one day, without even meaning to, you will meet someone else, someone more fitting, someone as outgoing as you are, someone who doesn’t have social anxiety and feels electrifying fear every time he has to enter crowded places.

He fears that “inevitable” day as much as he feared the dark when he was a kid. Irrationally hard yet so ground-shaking it torns to shreds every piece of bravery he built when the lights were on, When you are in his arms. 

And then, you come back to him, you always do. Like a catholic person always finds a way into their church, like Virgin Mary memorized her way into his son’s tomb for years after his death. you love him and you come back every day out of devotion for him. He can’t help but ask why you do, Why do you come back to him? why not let your eyes wander and find someone who has the same excitement to discover the world as you do, he truly doesn't understand yet sighs in relief at your continuous presence.

“Love you, kö” he hears you whisper next to him, the room dark yet the light in your eyes still visible, even in the darkness you find a way to shine and observe what doesn’t want to be seen, are you the most beautiful human being to ever exist. “I love you too” he mutters, voice shaky, because he loves you so much that the word “love” falls short, it isn’t quantifying enough to summarize his feelings for you, he feels sorry there isn’t a word fitting to tell you how he feels.

“Sleep well, kö” Your voice slowly fades, quieter and slower but you managed to wish him a good night's rest, aren’t you just so lovely, so caring even when falling into unconsciousness, even in your fading awakeness having him in mind “Schlaf gut” (sleep well) he whispers, not wanting to disturb you.

InfatuatedBoyfriend!Konig doesn’t sleep much when he’s with you, too busy breathing in your smell, the warmth of your arm wrapped around his waist and the heaviness of your head on his chest keeping his heartbeat erratic with love. it borderlines as an obsession about your presence and existence around him.

He perceives you in ways that make him feel at ease, you are what he lacks. you are everything he could’ve been if life had been kinder, and he is everything that you could’ve become if life hadn’t been kind. It’s a difference so parallel he feels like he shouldn’t be capable of touching you.

It feels sinful for someone like him, with hands stained with people’s blood to touch someone like you, with hands pristine from the violence you have never committed. He holds the pureness in which you live like one of the most prized parts of you he guards.

InfatuatedBoyfriend!Konig knows he isn’t a holy man, and has never stepped into a church after killing someone for the first time, not wanting to bring his sins into a place too holy to forgive him, he knows he doesn’t deserve forgiveness for what he’s done.

Yet, he still dreams of marrying you, of you in a white dress, walking towards the altar where he awaits for you, ready to vow his life and soul to you, even till death do the two of you apart. Because if the afterlife exists, he knows he’ll love you then and in whatever comes next.

[blogofageminimoon]

rest in peace, liam payne.

the passing of liam payne has been truly a tragedy. after having some time to process this devastating loss, i can honestly say that i am in absolute shock regarding the series of events which have occurred.

one direction has played a significant role throughout my childhood and adolescence. my initial reaction was pure disbelief but my emotions didn't start to kick in until several days later. i started listening to one direction when i was around 11 or 12 years old, just when their career started in their up all night days. i was a huge harry & zayn girl back then but harry has always been my favourite. ever since the boys transitioned into their solo careers, i would say harry has been the one who i've always closely followed since the band broke up. regardless, having such a crucial and essential member of one direction simply disappear breaks my heart. all the boys had their own role and character in the band and one direction wouldn't have been the band it was without every single member. liam was such a joy and brought so much positivity. he was always "daddy direction." now listening to one direction's music, it hasn't felt the same since many of the lyrics had second meanings in relation to liam's passing. it also hurts listening to his voice knowing that he is no longer with us anymore.

obviously, there has been a lot of negativity online towards liam throughout the weeks prior to his death. it's just so shocking how much the internet and hurtful words can have an impact on someone. i think everyone knows deep in their subconscious that online bullying has always been a thing and people need to be kind on social media. however, now that all of this drama has surfaced, i think myself and many others are shocked at how cruel the world can be. especially since liam is so young and well known. i think the news just slapped everyone in the face and gave us a reality check that online bullying is still a real and relevant thing. we need to take it seriously because too many lives have been lost.

moreover, one direction was such a significant part of myself and so many others' upbringings that it feels like a huge generational loss. one direction was a big part of growing up and thought us life lessons. we've always had this strong sense of community. it's beautiful seeing everyone come together and support one another while mourning liam's loss. however it is sad that this unexpected reunion was related to something dreadful. i truly hope everyone can be more mindful during this horrible time and just be a little bit nicer to others. i send my condolences to liam's friends, family and obviously harry, zayn, louis and niall. i really hope they don't take the negativity towards them too closely to heart because it's been ridiculous seeing all the insensitive comments on their social media platforms. i wish all the directioners love and support as well.

as for you liam, thank you for all the memories and happiness that you brought me. my inner child is heartbroken but you and your spirit will continue to live on through your passion and your music. i will cherish everything that you and one direction has brought me. i know you were suffering and i'm sorry the world has been so cruel to you but just know you're in a better and peaceful place now. rest in peace.

[mari-strider]

waspinator x reader pt2 where they do get away & join the maximals. My sweet bby bug boi deserves to be loved😤😤😤💚💚💚💛💛💛💚💚💚🐝🐝🐝🐝⚘🌷🌷🌹💐💐🌺🍯🍯🍯🍭🍬🍫🥛🎂🍦🍨🍨🍩🍮 good job on your writings have some flowers & sweets above in favor of our fav bug boi.

Three years later and your is wish granted!! <3 Thanks y'all for putting up with me and s/o to my irl lovebug that got me inspired to write again!

Waspinator/Reader Pt. 2

Life was finally looking up for Waspinator.

He had miraculously escaped the Predacon base with you in tow, alluding Megatron's clutches by having disabled your tracker. Not as if it really mattered. The t-rex knew exactly where the two of you were headed. For as stupid as he was, Megatron wasn't dumb enough to launch a full scale attack on a Sentinel protected Maximal base.

Waspinator's days were no longer filled with dread and hopelessness, but rather your dazzling smiles and tender touches. He was greeted every morning with the sight of you nestled into his side. Your sleeping face - angelic and ethereal. His mandibles would twitch gleefully as you cracked your eyes as you came to your senses, his cooing and the purring of his engine stirring you slowly awake.

Like so many other mornings, today was no different. Waspinator beamed down at you as you blinked to consciousness. Traces of sleep were evident in your smile and voice as you greeted your bot, "Morning, lovebug."

"Hrnzz good morning, fleshy bot." His arm around you gave you a light squeeze as he buried his face in your tousled hair. "Did fleshy bot zzleep well?"

You giggled at the tickling sensation of his words on your scalp. "I slept well, thank you for asking. Though, I am a little hungry." As if to prove your point, your stomach let out a growl. Laughing at the comedic timing, you untangled yourself from the grasp of both the blanket and Waspinator.

"No problem!! Letzz go steal from the Maximalzz food zztorage!" His optics squinted mischievously.

"It's not exactly stealing if they're letting us take from their storage, sweetheart."

"Hmmzz-" he scratched his chin in thought, "Waspinator zzuposes fleshy bot is right."

Grinning, you extended your hand for him to take. "Now that we settled that, let's go eat!" With Waspinator in tow, you exited your room and walked towards the small eating area the Maximals had created ever since gaining their half-organic forms.

The two of you had been happily chatting and eating when Cheetor prowled in from his usual morning patrol.

“Hey Cheetor! Anything interesting out there?” You waved the big cat over to where you and Waspinator were sitting.

“Sup shortstack! . . .And uh, hi to you too.” Cheetor gave the briefest of glances towards the green bot. Instead, opting to focus his fuzzy face on you. “No, nothing fun to report. But I could always take you with me on my next patrol! It definitely beats hanging out here all day.”

It was impossible to miss the way Waspinator’s wings buzzed in irritation at the feline’s remark. As irritated as Waspinator was, he knew better than to pick an outright fight with the people currently hosting the two of you. Without the Maximal base, not much would stand between the pair of you and Megatron’s ire.

Wishing to defuse the tension you gave a light laugh before answering Cheetor. “Thank you but I like it here, truly!” You nudged Waspinator’s side with your elbow, “And the company is pretty great too.” It wasn’t really the whole truth. You were getting a bit stir crazy to be completely honest but saying that would only serve to make Waspinator feel worse. Thankfully it seemed you said the right thing, evident by the way your insectoid bot had a smug look on his face to which Cheetor only quietly scoffed.

Emboldened and wishing to rub in Cheetor’s face the fact that you chose him over the cat bot, he turned to you with a happy squint of his optics “Fleshy bot come with Wazzpinator to get more food now, yes?”

It would be obvious by one look at your plates that the two of you were nowhere near done eating. You briefly wondered if your sweet bug understood how much of an open book he was. Knowing what he was up to, you could do nothing else but smile at his antics.

“That sounds like a great idea, lovebug.”

[quarterlifekitty]

Happy birthday!! How was your trip around the sun?

🪻

I’m assuming this is lollyflower and you forgot the Lolly? If not, hello new anon !

Thank you for the birthday wishes. I’m selfishly going to take this opportunity to vent like I’m gonna be shot tomorrow.

Honestly like the latter half of the year has been very hard. In September I just had like a total mental crisis regarding who I am and whether the real me is this person, or if I’ve crammed myself into being this way because it’s how I think I should be— how I think others want me to be, how I can take up as little space and burden in the lives of others as possible.

My self image has tanked a lot over this past year. Constantly comparing myself to others. Failing to lose weight. Looking at all of my past attempts at intimacy and ultimately feeling intolerable and revolting in all ways. And for the past couple of years? I’d honestly accepted defeat. Those feelings of revulsion for myself laid dormant because I thought I had accepted that I would continue to be alone in my life. I thought I was okay with that. And so the world shattered when I felt myself start to yearn, truly want companionship, again. Honestly, it was a very well written fanfic that did it. The way they wrote the male character— it snapped me out of years spent allowing myself to drown beneath the surface of the water.

But now I’m gasping for air. And that means pain.

I probably won’t say what fic this was, on the chance that knowing this is hurtful for them. I can’t say if it was a bad or good thing.

Anyways, I have been utterly dreading this birthday. It’s the first birthday where I’m feeling my age. One quarter century, and this is where I am? It feels like it’s over in so many ways. That I’ve lost the chance to be pretty, young, and adventurous— not that I was ever pretty. I got my first grey hairs this year. I’ve spent most of my life in the same exact room and I can’t say I’ve been the better for it. Everyone says that you’re not old at 30, or 40– that you can still discover things for your whole life. And that’s true. But it’s also true that many people see women as Christmas cakes. No good past the 25th. For all that I’ve fantasized about being the may in a may/December relationship, my may is ending. And where am I?

That’s why I started this blog. I felt lonely and unbearably undesirable, as well as insanely sexually frustrated. It has given me a sense of purpose and community, which I thank everyone for wholeheartedly. It’s good for me to be writing again. I think it’s helping me, though I’m not always sure.

In summation, this has been perhaps the most difficult birthday for me so far. But I think it would’ve been much harder without all of you who read my silly things. So thank you. And truly, thank you if you’re someone who has ever had a fleeting thought of me or something I’ve made. To know I’ve touched the heart or mind of another human being is one of the things that continues to bring me comfort.

And to everyone else who contributes to this community, in whatever way, thank you for your hard work. We are all plucking at the strands of a grand spiderweb together. And when we do so, we make a song. And the spider at the center of the web will never find us for as long as it continues.

[sexysilverstrider]

SSS | Alone

   It’s not bad being alone.

   Sometimes it envelopes you. Sometimes it suffocates you. Depending on the situation, being alone has a knack of either giving you hope on a silver platter or filling you with inescapable dread. Being alone allows one’s mind to think. To breathe. Being alone allows one’s heart to beat soundly, singing a calm tune to their ears.

   Being alone sometimes comes with the feeling of loneliness. And it is sometimes she’s not keen on looking forward to.

   However, as she sits in front of the quiet campfire, she realizes that loneliness is a form of company as well.

   It’s quiet. Peaceful. Oftentimes haunting. Others once said that the feeling of loneliness could drive one crazy, and she believes them. There are many times in the past that she wished she could erase some actions she regrets deeply so. She also heard that loneliness could drive one to grief, and she understands. There are many times in the past that she saw the emotion rob someone of the promised happiness.

   At times, loneliness is a sense of comfort that gives her peace.

   Arms wrap around her knees. Chin rests on her kneecaps, she watches as the fire flickers peacefully. Hazel eyes stare on the left. A small smile twitches the corner of her mouth to see Damien snoozing peacefully.

   While she may feel lonely, she technically isn’t alone.

   One hand pats the top of his head, earning a soft purr from the Typhlosion. The Pokémon tucks his face under one paw as he curls next to her. The sight is too cute for her to watch, and this draws out a soft giggle from her.

   “Kotone?”

   The hand that pats him stops.

   Surprised by the voice, Kotone looks up. Surprise turns to shock as she sees the last person she ever expects.

   Silver only stands for a while, also surprised by her presence tonight. “Huh,” is all he says next. No sign of displeasure plasters the young man’s face. The rival in front of him hasn’t said a word, probably too stunned to do so as seeing each other in a random forest isn’t part of their plan.

   Funny, he thinks, as they always bumped into each other more than necessary in the past.

   A single chuckle escapes him. “You okay?”

   The man is filled with surprises today. “Oh!” Finally, a peep from her. “I’m fine.” A smile grows wider. “I just didn’t expect to see you tonight.” Acting out of instinct, Kotone pats a spot next to her. She doesn’t think much of it. A habit, it probably is, and it’s something that she won’t hesitate to do whenever he’s around.

   And it’s something he doesn’t question as he sits next to her.

   A disgruntled grumble echoes nearby. Silver doesn’t need to investigate to know where that sound comes from.

   Reassuring her grumpy fire starter, Kotone bents to give a small peck on the top of his head. “Have you had dinner yet?” The question is out as she straightens her back and looks at Silver. Her smile, while being something that is so natural to her, seems less peppy and more…peaceful.

   He realizes this.

   “Hmm,” is all he replies. As his legs cross, Silver lets the gears in his brain grind. His aloof reply is something he’s used to, and something she’s used to as well. Albeit rude from a stranger’s gaze, Silver knows Kotone could read his emotions through a single word.

   It’s something he once found infuriating. And now something he finds so endearing.

   Finally decided on his actions, he turns slightly in her direction. Without a word, his arms spread open.

   A smile tickles his lips to see shock on her face again.

   Truly, the young woman is stunned for words. Silver is rarely the type to display public forms of affection. Even in their years of rivalry turned relationship, he will only display his feeling through simple actions such as holding her hand or patting her head.

   Ah.

   Then again, they are alone in a peaceful forest. Only the stars and moon become their beautiful witness.

   The feeling of shock swiftly dissolves into sheer giddiness. A giggle tickles her pretty, pretty smile. Without a word, Kotone shyly scoots closer until her body was wrapped by his arms.

   He feels warmer, more comfortable than the fire.

   Cheeks are kissed by bliss; Kotone wraps her own knees close to her chest as she snuggles on his side. She then feels a soft chup on the left side of her head, and this only brings heat straight to the tips of her ears.

   Carefully, he stretches his legs forward, giving her an easier access to huddle in his embrace. Cheeks tinted in red, Silver nuzzles into her soft brown locks. “Feeling better?” he asks, voice quiet and husky, lulled with admiration that neither once believed they would ever portray for each other.

   “Yes,” she peeps, voice quiet and bashful, trickling with affection that neither once believed they would ever have for one another.

   The sound of crackling fire soothes their thundering hearts. The sights of their loving smiles are hidden through their snuggling bodies.

   It’s not bad being alone.

   But it’s not bad to have company either.

END

[sparkliingdust]

I went on a date that a friend set me up with, and it was disastrous. Long story short, he was a MAGA Supporter disguised as a musical theater/fandom/movie/etc. nerd.

And, what I learned is always follow your gut - a bunch of side shit that made the date super awkward and made me question meeting up might not be a good idea, but I went through with it anyways... Instead of listening to the yick factor, I ended up wasting my time, energy, and money. And he ended up being a dickhead and the food wasn't even good.

While I don't blame my family or co-workers who supported me going on a date and want to see me do more than go to work and go to home, if someone is actively expressing something greater than nervousness about going on a date, and are talking about how they dread being in a relationship all the way to their core, maybe respect that that they truly do not want to go on a date. My family and co-workers were 1000x more excited for me to go on a date and felt like I was making a life-altering mistake. That's not normal. lol

As someone who sees themselves as single for now, and the near future, please respect our choice to be single or on our own. I get lonely. I imagine being in a relationship. I'm open for the right person to come along, but at the same time, I know what I want, and I'm okay with not going through the whole humiliating dating process to get to that other person. Like I'm confident enough to not beat myself up over wandering 'what if I never end up with someone?' because I'm really okay with being on my own.

It's also very frustrating for women at work who are not happy with their partners and constantly tell me not to have kids because they are not happy with their family, to constantly ask me about why I don't see myself with kids, when am I going to go out on a date, aren't I lonely....not really, until you keep making me feel awful about it. There was a time when I was teenager when it was all that I imagined. I really wanted to have a traditional hetero marriage and be the mom I never had and had the family I never did - and RECORD SCRATCH - one day I realized that's exactly what my mom did. She wished to have kids to have the family she never did. And once I realized I only wanted to be a mom if it didn't mean continuing that generational cycle, I decided maybe that wasn't for me. Again, it could be some day. But if I get to that place, it will be my choice - not because co-workers think it's a good idea for me.

I've heard the horror stories from everyone around me settling for someone they don't enjoy spending life with and/or going through the humiliating process of hunting down the right person to be with..and honestly, I want to do other things with my time.... and if I can be that person that I want to spend my life with and do it without a central companion that's not a dog/cat/fish/etc, why shouldn't I be able to??

When I see people doing something by themselves for the first time, and never knew that was possible for them, it makes me kinda sad. Because of the messaging that's out there. Going to the movies, to a wine and paint class, to a museum, to the park, to the coffee shop, to a restaurant, etc. by yourself is okay. You are just trying to enjoy your own company before, or if you ever, decide to pair up with someone.

People just need to respect that shit.

[if-i-bothered-to-write-a-fanfic]

Battered Steal

She knows the exact moment when everything changed.

She was young, a girl merely of four and ten. She remembers anxiously picking at the skin of her fingers, tentatively speaking with her father after the unseemly death of the late queen. She was saddened for her dearest friend, and yet-

“I thought you might go to him, offer him comfort.”

Her father all but ordered her to remain by the king's side. 

She wasn’t naive, foolish as many would think, she was aware of what her father was demanding of her. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to deny him. With her heart heavy, nausea threatening to send her to her feet, she dressed herself in the image of her late mother and made her way to the king's chambers. 

Over time, she sensed the shift in the king’s attention. It went from pleasant, cordial company, to something more. At least, in the king’s eyes, it was more.

Alicent only ever felt constantly ill to her stomach. 

As the days passed, her father would offer further suggestions on what she should do to garner more of the king’s favor. To dress a certain way, to bring the king gifts, to continue offering the king a shoulder to lean on. 

It only made it easier that Rhaenyra was shunning him.

The king would often narrate his woes, about how he missed his dearest daughter, how lost he felt without his late wife and son. Only, for him then to state how beautiful she was, how kind, gentle, as radiant as the sun. A beauty liken to Aemma. 

And then, he started to slowly touch her more.

It started off with a gentle brush of the fingers, leaning more into her personal space. It then grew into lingering caresses, and even the occasional gentle kiss to her head or neck. The king was becoming more bold, building up to something that only brought the greatest dread to Alicent.

Then, despite it all, even she too was blindsided by the announcement.

“I have decided to take a new wife.” The king paused, staring at those of his council. “I intend to marry the lady Alicent Hightower, before spring's end.”

What hurt worse than her inevitable fate, was the look of despair and betrayal on her dearest friend's face. 

Things only spiraled for the worse from that moment on. Rhaenyra would not even look at her, immediately turning away whenever they would cross paths. Alicent tried to speak to her, apologize and explain to her the circumstances of her position. Yet, Rhaenyra wouldn’t hear a word of what she had to say, and Alicent, she couldn’t even fault her for the vitriol. 

It hurt, she never felt more lost and alone without having anyone she could truly lean on. 

Soon her wedding day came, the entire day Alicent never spoke a word besides pleasantries to honored guests. She was not happy, she never would be happy again. She was to wed a man more than twice her age, lay with him, and bear his children. 

Alicents heart stuttered, tears unknowingly filled her eyes as the reality of her circumstances hit her. She didn’t want this, she never wanted any of this. She mourned for the days her and Rhaenyra would sit in the Royal gardens, and read fantastical stories that her dearest friend would bring. She mourned the days when she was free.

“By the light of the seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity.”

Her fate was sealed. 

The king, her husband, bed her that same night. The first of many, all of which for her own sanity she forced herself to forget. She would let the man do as he wishes, and she would lose herself in her thoughts, memories, of times spent with Rhaenyra. Despite everything, Rhaenyra would always remain her greatest source of comfort as much as she was her greatest source of pain. 

Years eventually bleed into each other, and Alicent grew more into herself as a woman. She birthed three beautiful Targaryen children, and yet, she seemed to have only learned to grow to be frigid and bitter. Instead of love, Alicent only ever seemed to feel a cloying mixture of apathy, rage, and despair.  

She would never tell him, but as much as she loved her father, Otto, under the cover of night she wished him dead all the same. 

The relationship she once cherished, treasured with Rhaenyra, had been burned in dragon fire. They had jumped at each other's throats on too many occasions, speaking venom-laced words aimed to hurt, and they did. They irrevocably damaged the once seemingly unbreakable bond. Now, they’re little more than acquaintances holding poisoned daggers at each other's backs. 

Everyday they seemed to move themselves and those around them in a practiced dance, a strategic game of chess where the one who loses will fall to the hands of death. Alicent has learned this game with Otto, has played it with the king, she more than knew the consequences of failure. With Rhaenyra, she knew she could not allow any faults. Her life and the life of her children laid in precarious balance, and the venomous words of Otto breathing down her neck did not help.

Each day she seemed to spiral further into a blackened void she could not hope to escape from, both duty and faith at war with her mind and body as she fought for herself and the station of her children. Alicent, after all these years, still didn’t know how to interact with those she brought into the world. All she knew was fear and hatred. She despised her children because their conception was never consensual, but she couldn’t help but to love them because they were still of her. She did the only thing she could do, she kept her interactions with them to a minimum. She oversaw their studies, answered the questions they may have had, but she never truly tried to get to know them. 

Well, that was until she came to understand Aemond. 

She saw herself in her second-born son. He was a boy excluded from his siblings and Rhaenyra’s children, isolated in his own right. After the incident where he lost his eye, well, she couldn’t help but to compare when she lost something too. Aemond became her favorite of the three, the only one she truly bonded with as mother and son. 

She knew it wasn’t right, that there was something undoubtedly broken in her, all Alicent could do was to survive the fight for a throne she was never born to, and fight to have her first-born son rightfully seated upon it so she too can be free. 

When Viserys himself said unto his final breath that Aegon was the prince that was promised, she couldn’t help but to hear that as a confession to reinstate a male heir to the iron throne. It seemed perfect, everything that made her who she was, was finally coming to an end. She did her duty, Viserys was dead, no one but her son would be able to command her. 

Except-

“Rhaenyra has declared herself the rightful heir to the iron throne, crowning herself queen of the seven kingdoms.”

Alicent wished she knew the price of her desired freedom, for if she knew the ferocity of a battle between dragons, she might’ve done things differently. Maybe she wouldn’t have been a coward? Maybe she would’ve found that she too was as strong willed as any dragon? That she could have fought for herself? Prevented needless bloodshed by denying a marriage to a man she never loved? 

Watching as she lost every last one of her children, even her grandchildren-

She couldn’t help but to feel regret as she took her last breath, staring at the vacant walls that made up her tomb. 

[xbakajanaino]

It’s been one month. One month since I’ve lost you, my best friend. The sun hasn't shined brightly and the grass doesn’t look as green. It feels like the whole world has stopped moving since you left. Everything that once was beautiful and colorful turned dull and grey. I still find myself expecting to talk to you everyday. Expecting to hear your laugh and joke with you. But now all I'm met with is silence.

I miss you so much. Everyday without you has been absolute torture. It was such a simple mistake and yet it has cost me everything. I remember telling you that I wanted to prioritize our friendship over everything else. And I meant it. I would rather go through hell than lose you. You were the one person I trusted with my life. The one person who knew how I was truly feeling at any given moment. The only person I was ever completely honest with. We've been friends for so long, we've shared secrets, dreams, fears, and we've helped each other through some of the hardest moments of our lives. We've cried, laughed, and everything in between together. But above everything, we had fun together. I've always been happy around you. That's why losing you has been so hard.

I've spent every day regretting that one moment. If I had just taken the time to think, to breathe, none of this would have happened. I would be able to wake up everyday and smile because of the thought of talking to you. I wouldn't be dreading the day ahead. I wouldn't be constantly crying or wishing for you to come back. You were the best thing in my life.

I don’t know how you’re adapting. I don’t know if you’re doing any better or if everything has been ok. I dont know what it is but I can’t adapt. I can barely drag myself out of bed to go to work, let alone get up at a decent time in the morning anymore. It hurts me so much to think of how much pain I have caused you. How I've broken our bond. I wish I could change the past and make everything ok again. I wish I could fix my mistake.

It's been a month and I'm still struggling. A part of me hopes that things are different where you are. That maybe, just maybe, things are ok. That you can find peace and that the pain will go away. You've been my light, my sunshine.

But I can't keep thinking about you like this. Because as much as I want to see you and talk to you again, I know that's not possible. And as much as I love you, it's killing me inside. It's killing me not knowing if you're happy or if you're suffering. It's killing me that I can’t speak with you and tell you everything is going to be alright. But I guess that's life. It's not always fair. And it's never easy.

I miss you everyday. Everyday I remember you and all the good times we've had together. The good memories are what keep me going, even if just a little. And even though it doesn’t feel like things will ever be the same again, I promise you that I'll continue fighting. Because I know that's what you would want me to do.

You are forever my best friend and the person who's impacted my life the most. I can only hope that I will be able to repay the kindness you've shown me throughout the years.

I love you, my dearest friend.

I hope I hear from you some day.

[ravenwolf1132]

Say Jolyne does get Made in Heaven. (Thought I'd try my hand a story this time. Warning, long post and I still can't figure out read mores)

Jotaro escapes the foundation's clutches again after regaining his memory and hunts down his daughter, hoping he's not too late. When he does make it to Cape Canaveral, he expects to be fighting Pucci but instead he finds Jolyne, alive and well, standing over Pucci's unconscious body, the power of heaven itself at her fingertips.

Say the only thing Jotaro thinks of is white padded walls and concrete floors, lights that are on 24/7 and rooms under constant surveillance. He thinks of his daughter dressed in orange with a serial number branded on her, undergoing torturous test after test before being locked away and forgotten. Like him.

He calls out to her, frantic and desperate, begging her to let it go, to stop what she's doing and reconsider.

She turns to him, and smiles.

She explains that she's seen his memories, that she knows what the foundation has done to her father, seen the way the children's bullying left him completely unfazed, barely comparable to the torture of the foundation. The fear when Star Platinum first appeared, when his mother got sick, the sheer terror of "What will happen when this trip is over? Will I be locked up again?" The dread he felt facing Dio, the rage and anguish at Kakyoin, Avdol, and Iggy's deaths. The vague sense of freedom he got when going to college but always having to look over his shoulder. How the one friend he had left went missing without a trace. How there was a light in the darkness of Jotaro's life, his wife and daughter. How he fought to protect them, to see them, to just hold his newborn baby.

She knows about how he would be punished for disobeying orders to be here, not once but twice. And she wishes to put an end to all of it.

She asks his to imagine a world where people like him are truly protected, safe and comforted. Not sterile white walls and harsh lights, but a calm, more homely environment, colorful and warm. A place for those of their kind to thrive.

(She see herself as one of his kind. His kind. No, this is what he's be trying to avoid.)

He can't. He can't imagine such a place.

(Yet he does, he sees the warm creams of paper walls and posters of marine life and bands, smells wonderfully cooked homemade food, hears a voice so soft and gentle. Holly. He wants this place of safety, he wants his mom.)

He collapses before her, begging for her not to do this, not to get his hopes up just for it all to come crashing down and for them to both get in trouble.

She laughs, "for someone who's supposed to represent the star card you sure lack faith, Dad.-"

(She called him Dad, She Called Him Dad! He should be happy, right? It's all he's ever wanted. So why does he feel only dread?)

"-Though I suppose I can't blame you, after what they've done. But I have the power to make things right! I can change all of that, I can make the foundation better, I can ensure the lives all those suffering at their hands are treated better! I can make you Granny Holly's biological son, if nothing else."

He cries, he does want that, he wants all of that, but does he dare let him dream of it? Let alone have it?

"I can bring your friends back..."

Please...

"Kakyoin, Avdol, Iggy, Uncle Polnareff, all of them, Dad! Maybe even that Ceasar guy Jiji always talked about."

He snorts at that, he's heard stories of Ceasar Zeppelli. He's always wanted to meet him...

She reaches out to him...

...And a gunshot rings out.

An inhuman hiss escapes him as pain blooms in his shoulder. He whips around with a growl and lets out screeching roar. He's had enough, he's not gonna let these bastards take his daughter from him again. He feels sharp claws, rows of sharp teeth, his senses heightened and sharpened. Then a soft but firm hand wraps around his wrist, Jolyne.

"We need to act quick, you take the lead, I'll deal with them."

Stone Ocean; Made In Heaven stands behind her, transformed into an ethereal paragon of light. Made of white silk and string, laced with gold. A being so powerful that even the foundation agents can see it, and are shaking in their boots. More shots ring out, but this time are reflected by a mobius strip that surrounds them.

Pucci wakes up in time to see this happening. Realizing what's happening, he shouts in a rage only to hear Jolyne say;

"I have to thank you, Pucci, the power I have now would have never been possible without you. Don't worry, I'll make sure you get a slice of "heaven" too."

Time begins to distort, speeding up, slowing down, stopping, then-

They see it. Their timeline right in front of them. Strings are cut, some are repaired, others joined together in other places, even new ones added. And once all is said and done...

Time rewinds.

Jotaro watches as Stone Ocean passes the Power of Heaven to Star Platinum, now he's the one cloaked in white and gold, stars floating around him. "It's up to you now, Dad." Jolyne tells him, "Just make sure I exist, ok?"

She grins, so childlike and small. She a young teen, a child, a toddler, a baby. A baby curled in his arms.

(After all this time, he's finally able to hold his little girl)

And all goes white.

A/N: It's worse when you think about how my personal headcanon is that Jotaro is trans, he was never allowed to hold the child he birthed.

---

He wakes up in an unfamiliar room. Instead of the foundation's white walls and harsh lights, it was a little boy's room. Game console in the corner with a television and cable set, bookshelves lined with all sorts of books, mostly about marine animals (how did he know that?), a desk covered in childlike drawings and toys scattered everywhere around the room. This wasn't his room at Holly's house and this couldn't be the foundation.

Yet... it was.

Memories conflicted with each other. Faces of cruel and horrible doctors replaced with kind and caring caretakers. Sterile hallways replaced with halls lined with photographs, colorfully painted and warm. It didn't feel real.

The door opens and Jotaro hides, he always does. He back there again, so he needs to hide. And yet...

"Oh dear, Jotaro, are you ok, hun?"

He looks up, it's not Holly, its a black haired woman he's never met. No. No, he has met her, of course he has! It was Dr. Foster, his foster mother at the foundation. How did he forget?

"Bad dream..." he mumbles. That's right, that old world was just a bad dream now and nothing more.

(He holds desperately onto some memories though, Kakyoin, Avdol, Polnareff, Iggy, Jiji, Holly, Jolyne.)

"Aw, it's ok, sweetie, do you want to talk about it?"

He shakes his head.

"Alright, well, perhaps I might have something to get your mind off your horrible nightmare. You have a visitor today."

"A visitor?" He asks meekly. A visitor usually meant more tests and pain before.

"That's right, there's a kind lady looking to adopt today. She's a very special person to the foundation. Someone who deserves the best, and you are the lucky boy!"

Kind lady? Special to the foundation? Could it be?

"Would you like to meet her?"

"...yea."

"Then let's get ready."

Jotaro could hardly believe this was the foundation now as he walked through the halls. He managed to successfully sort his memories out from old and new, and from the new ones he got a better picture of this new world.

Robert E.O. Speedwagon set an anti-corruption protocol in place so the foundation would never get to the horrible condition it was in the old world. This was Speedwagon's Orphanage for Supernatural Humanoids, an offshoot of the Sanctuary for the Supernatural. A place where humanoid supernaturals live in comfort, safety, and protection - hence SCP - and if the right people/persons/family are found, can move into human homes and live human lives.

Of course, there were truly dangerous things in the foundation, and thus delt with accordingly. But everything was treated in much more accurate and appropriate ways, namely the sentient SCPs.

Was this truly real?

As they walk through the door, he sees her. Blond hair and green eyes, pearl earrings and tan cardigan. Violet Star on the back of her neck.

Mom.

"Oh, hello little one." She smiles. "My name is Holly, what's your name?"

(He remembers hiding under a steel table, those very words echoing back at him, this time he's not hiding, he safe.)

"...Jotaro."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Jotaro. Would you like to come home with me?"

He nods, and for the first time he thinks, maybe things won't be so bad this time around.

LISTEN

I was taking a shower when this thought hit me like a truck and hear me out

Different Perspective but with SWCP Foundation! Jotaro

Go wild :D

oh

O h

Oh damn……..

Pucci…… Pucci was not ready. He didn’t expect the life of Jotaro Kujo to be a glamorous one but…… but he’d never thought it would be anything like this

Pucci learns of cold concrete and white walls, of a door that rarely opened and when it did the people who entered only spoke in harsh words and insults, of cruel tests and prying eyes constantly tearing into him, of a crushing loneliness that never abated for years and years and YEARS-

Pucci learns of a kind blonde woman who spoke in soft, gentle tones, who gave him food that tasted of nothing he’d ever known, who was warm and held him close as if he were something precious, who tried to protect him when They came to take him back

Pucci learns of escape attempt after escape attempt to get to that woman, how even though the punishments afterward were harsh, they were NOTHING compared to how good it felt to be there with her, how in the end that care was reciprocated and she fought to keep him safe despite the danger

(suddenly Jotaro killing Dio in exchange for his mother's life makes more sense than Pucci feels comfortable with)

Pucci learns of how despite how many times he’d held himself back, had bit his tongue, had followed orders…… there was never any trust. Never any loosening of the leash they had him in, if anything over the years it had only grown more taught, how every action needed to be carefully calculated and every word carefully thought out lest he risk more time in the empty white rooms with concrete floor for days, weeks, months at a time

Pucci learns that Jotaro had disobeyed direct orders to be here and that the punishment for it…… would likely be severe. Possibly even permanent

Pucci realizes that whatever happens to Jotaro is going to be his fault. After all, the only reason Jotaro had even been here was to rescue Jolyne from the thing which terrified him most, to save her from the fate he'd done everything in his power to prevent

and what if........ what if Pucci ends up showing Jolyne his findings. He uses White Snake to corner her and ensure she won't be able to hurt him or call for help, but he gives her Jotaro's disc and tells her to watch it before she makes any decisions, maybe even tells her a location and time to meet if she wants to talk to him again. His intention had been to sway Jolyne to his side, to get another ally because honestly, Jotaro's situation would probably just give him more incentive to go through with his plan

in practice though.......

When Jolyne learns the truth, she's left just as conflicted as Pucci had been, maybe even more. Everything she thought she knew about her father was brutally shattered before her very eyes, leaving a very, very ugly picture remaining. On one hand, there is no way in HELL she's going to stand for this. But on the other....... this is White Snake. He's the whole reason she's stuck in this situation, the reason her father's in a coma, the reason Emporio's mom is dead, everything

And well....... she does have access to her father's memories now so......

What if instead of Pucci resetting the world....... it's Jolyne :)

[bite-sized-devil]

Piggy Back Rides

You've had a particularly long hard day at RAD. Exhausted and dreading the walk home, you ask your favourite demon brother for a little favour.

Was going to do these in groups, but they just kept getting longer and longer. Apologies my fellow simps, please enjoy them one at a time starting with the eldest and finishing with the youngest.

Warnings: None! It's some fluffy fluff. GN! Reader.

Satan

Truly, you didn't want to bother him. That's what you told yourself as you crept up behind the the chair he was currently sitting in.

He looked so engrossed in the book he was reading, what you were planning surely should be a crime. Oh well, you were in a mood and it's always fun to tease Satan.

On tippy-toes you continue on your path of annoyance. Ever so slowly you reach your hands out ready to pounce on him.

"MC, I know you're there." He says without so much as a peep in your direction.

"Boooo Satan, you're no fun." Pouting as you say it.

Your hands still stay the course, connecting with his broad shoulders then sliding down across his chest as you lean in to look over his shoulder.

"I apologise, next time I'll pretend I don't notice when you enter a room." He teases you as he turns a page. He's acting to unfazed by your close proximity but you know you felt his breath hitch when you started sliding your hands across his chest.

Rolling your eyes you remove your hands from around his chest and move to stand in front of him with your hands on your hips.

"First of all, as if you could. Secondly I have a better idea of how you can repay me for ruining my practical joke." You say as you bend down so your face is level with his.

"Hah, ok sure. What do you have in mind?" He quirks his eyebrow as he finally looks up at you. Closing his book, and giving you his full attention.

"A PIGGYBACK RIDE!" You yell excitedly, eyes closing as you smile at him.

He's glad you closed your eyes when you hit him with that smile, it's giving him an extra minute to compose himself. Fuck, you're cute. He hates the idea of owing anyone but he'd be happy to owe fate one for sending you to him.

When you open your eyes you see a bored expression, but the slight pink tint to his cheeks gives him away. You know he secretly loves it when you annoy him, that's why you sought him out.

"Let's go Satan, I can even read to you while I'm on your back so you don't have to miss out on the exciting part of your book." Reaching out you grab his free hand and start tugging on it

"Hey! No spoilers MC. But fine I can give you a piggy back if that is what you wish." He gets up at the same time you give a particularly strong yank on his arm.

You squeak as you start to fall backwards, but a strong arm reaches around and catches you, pulling you back against his hard frame.

"Have you always been this clumsy? Or is it for my benefit?" He chuckles and lets you go once you are steady on your feet.

"Hmm maybe a bit of both actually, I kind of like having your arm around me." You flash him a sly smile, but he misses it as he turns his back to you a little to quickly.

"Just get on will you." He says sounding exasperated, he shakes his head and crouches down for you. You think maybe your teasing has gone to far until you see how red is ears have become. Nope, he's just trying to hide his reddening face from you.

Placing your hands on his shoulders you jump up and wrap your thighs around his waist. One of his hands come down to grip your leg, holding you in place, while the other holds his book out to you waiting for you to grab it.

"Page 152, please." Is all he says when you take the book from him and he grabs your other leg with his now free hand. Hoisting you up further on his back before he begins to walk towards the door to the library.

You begin to read, smiling softly as you feel his appreciative hum vibrate through your chest almost like a purr.

Satan takes his time carrying you home, you are unaware but he's circled the same block 3 times already. He doesn't want this time with you to end just yet, loving the feeling of having you pressed against him.

Your voice as you read to him is so sweet, he's going to have to reread this chapter when he's alone because he can't seem to concentrate.

How your free hand keeps rubbing circles on his chest only to stop and grip his shirt when you get to a particularly exciting part of the book.

The way your breath keeps tickling the side of his neck. Making him glad he's wearing his jacket or you'd be able to see the goosebumps that keep raising on his arms.

Feeling you giggle against his back when you find something amusing in the words you're reading. He thought hearing your cute giggle was hard enough, but feeling you loose yourself a little is driving him mad.

You come to the end of the chapter at the same time Satan announces you've arrived.

"Oh, that worked out well!" You say as you hop down from his back. He "mn's" in response. He secretly hopes you don't think it too suspicious how 'well' it really turned out. He was a little concerned you hadn't wondered why it took so long to get here. But not so concerned that he wanted to voice it.

You open the door and start to walk inside, getting halfway up the stairs before you turn back to him.

"Satan... Can we finish the book in your room... Together?" Flashing him another one of your dazzling smiles when the last word leaves your lips. How could he ever refuse you?

"Of course MC."

You slip your hand in his as he meets you on the stairs. His fingers tighten against yours, feeling the blush bloom on his cheeks. He doesn't turn away this time. He lets you see it as you both walk to his room.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it ☺️Likes, comments, and reblogs are so appreciated! 🌻 Please don't repost, that shit won't fly here. I'll annoy the absolute shit out of you. If you would like to join the tag list please fill in my dumb little form

Tagging: @delphi-dreamin @blackwings-with-angeleyes @ladyofthemorningstar @alexxavicry @not-a-cat-lawyer @aprilwallflower @your-next-daydream @soapbooger

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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. ❜

[foreverindreamlandd]

Um, hi, if you’re still taking requests do you mind breaking my heart and then putting it back together with Bucky?! 🤣

Snoopy and the Cadillac

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (formerly Steve Rogers x Reader)

WC: 5.6k

Summary: It's your first Christmas after Steve decided to leave you to spend his life with Peggy, and all you wanted to do was stay as far away from holiday cheer as possible. But then a familiar face shows up at your door and changes everything.

A/n: Hope I got the job done and broke your heart, buddy ;) [divider by @chrissquares]

The first Christmas without him.

You had been dreading it for months, wishing and willing for all holidays to just go by without you having to notice their existence. This was becoming your philosophy for pretty much every aspect of your life. That you could continue to live through it coated with numbness, refusing to acknowledge the pain that had begun to fester deep within you ever since he left, only allowing it to create a persistent, dull sting. A constant companion and reminder of what you had lost.

The universe did not allow that to happen, though.

Had you not been in a neverending state of devastation, you might have found it hilarious how impossible it was to ignore the existence of the holiday season. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing festive decorations, Hallmark Christmas movie ads on every TV commercial and streaming service. And even when you stayed in the seemingly safe confines of your house, the faint glow of twinkle lights cascaded down each apartment building along your block.

It was everywhere. A constant reminder of everyone’s happiness, everyone’s merriment and cheer. And you knew that you should share those bright and happy feelings, it was the first Christmas after The Blip, the first one in five years that those who weren’t snapped got to celebrate with the loved ones they thought to be dead.

The whole situation put you in such mental turmoil, torn in two directions of how you felt about it. One part of you was grateful that you were snapped away for five years, not having to experience the unimaginable pain of seeing an exorbitant number of your loved ones being turned to dust.

The other part would forever wonder if had you stayed around for those five years, he might still be here.

“I’m sorry, lov- Y/n. I never expected this to happen. It’s just, now that I know I can go back, I know it’s what I need to do. You’ll be better off, you deserve someone better.”

Just like he did. He deserved to be with the woman he truly loved.

Which, apparently, was not you after all.

Though the admission ripped your heart to pieces, the worst part was that somewhere deep in your brain, you always knew. Knew that you were never good enough for Steve. He was America’s golden boy, and you were…well, you.

It had never made sense why he wanted you, especially after you saw photos of the drop-dead gorgeous Peggy Carter. Why would he want someone like you when he’d had that?

You had spent years working toward being worthy of that love, being there for him every step of the way. It hadn’t been that hard, because as soon as you met him once he woke up after 70 years submerged in ice and you looked into those bright blue eyes and saw that glowing smile, you were a goner.

You would do anything for that man, did anything for that man. Cooked him meals that reminded him of the ones his mom would make, helped him acclimate to this new era and tried to go back in time by watching movies and listening to music from the ‘40s, loving how much he would light up from these small efforts.

You were there by his side when Peggy passed away, holding his hand at her funeral.

Then one day, it clicked, and Steve looked at you differently. The shock was almost overwhelming, having the thing you had dreamt of for so long finally happen.

Christmases with Steve were pure magic, and you couldn’t wait to spend the lifetime of them with him. Your person.

That life had been cut short, left broken and bleeding at a house by the lake.

Now it was just you, walking up the stairs to your apartment, eyes glued to the icy concrete to prevent a very likely slip and fall.

“Hey.”

Your face shot up to the door in front of you, a familiar figure with short brown hair and a small, tentative smile standing at the top of the stairs.

“Bucky?” Your foot slipped on the step and you waved your arms around frantically, trying to grasp onto something as you fell backwards, bracing for what was definitely going to be a painful and unpleasant impact with the harsh surface.

Until your arm was grabbed and your body was no longer falling, suspended for a few seconds as you looked into the wide blue eyes of your savior.

“Are you okay?” he asked, suddenly breathless from the adrenaline rush.

You nodded, also breathing heavily. Bucky gently pulled you to stand straight. “Thank you.”

He kept his hand on your arm, eyes locked on yours. His hair was shorter, his beard shaved down to a thin layer of scruff, but his eyes remained the same as the last time you saw them.

A perfect reflection of what lay behind yours. Pain, loss, grief.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, finally.

You watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. “I, uh, I just moved a few blocks down. Sam told me you were close by, and I wanted to check in. See how you were.” He looked behind his shoulder to the paper bag on the ground. “Brought some muffins from a bakery down the road.”

“Which bakery?” Your brows furrowed while his shot up.

“Lee’s?”

For the first time in what felt like a long time, the corners of your mouth lifted to a small smile.

“Good choice. I love Lee’s.”

The smile of relief Bucky gave you caused you to feel as if you were free falling once more, but you pushed that away almost immediately. Instead, you willed your focus on getting up the treacherous stairs, begrudgingly clinging to Bucky’s arm as an anchor until you reach the top.

Bucky leaned down to grab the muffins and handed them to you, and the two of you stood there in a painfully awkward silence for a few moments until he could no longer take it. “Well, I hope you’re doing well. If you need anything, let me know. You have my number, right?”

You nodded. “I do. Um…do you want to come in?”

His mouth dropped for a millisecond before he caught himself. Then, he gave you another small smile. “Sure, that sounds great. Thanks.”

Your apartment wasn’t anything nice. It used to be filled with life, photos of loved ones, different trinkets and special decor. All of that reminded you of Steve, though, and over the past few months you had removed almost all trace of him, leaving the space as hollow as you felt on the inside.

“How long have you lived here?” Bucky asked, taking off his boots. He kept his leather jacket on, though, as well as his black leather gloves. Not that he needed to, you knew what was underneath, but you weren’t going to force him to remove his armor if he needed it to feel comfortable.

“Couple of years. Well, not including the five that I was…gone.”

He nodded. “It’s nice. Lot more stuff in it than mine.”

You pictured a barren wasteland. “Do you like your place?”

“It’s fine. An adjustment, but fine.”

Silence.

More silence.

“Do you want water? Tea? Wine?”

“Water is fine. Alcohol doesn’t do anything anymore anyways.”

“Right.” You grabbed two glasses of water and sat at the small dining room table.

The silence continued. You had no idea what to say to the man before you. The last things you had said to him were….unkind.

“How can you just let him leave? Are you that much of a coward that you won’t say something?”

Bucky noticed your wince at the memory and shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “Was this a bad idea? Should I not have come?”

You sat straight, hands waving so manically that you nearly knocked over your glass. “No! No. It’s good to see you, Bucky. I just- I feel bad how I left things. What I said to you was awful.”

He shook his head, jaw tense. “You were upset. We both were.” He muttered his next few words into his glass, “Most of what you said was true anyways.”

“It wasn’t. I was lashing out at you even though you were probably grieving just as much as I was. That wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for-” don’t say it, “I’m just sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” He lifted his glass toward you with a sheepish smile. “To being sorry for not knowing how to emote in healthy ways.”

You chuckled, clinking your glass to his. “A-fucking-men to that.”

Once the tension was broken, the two of you spent the rest of the night chatting somewhat comfortably. You each had your own impenetrable walls up, careful with each word spoken in a way that still brought an edge to the atmosphere. Still, it was nice to talk to someone who didn’t expect you to be happy or express any type of emotion.

You could just…be. Be sad, be tired, be guarded, and for Bucky that was okay.

Until the topic of Christmas came up.

“What are you doing to celebrate? Getting the tree and lights and all that shit?” he asked, pulling a scoff from you.

“Fuck no. I’m canceling Christmas.”

His brows furrowed. “Not in the holiday spirit or something?”

“Not in any type of spirit to do anything so cheerful, I guess. What about you?”

Bucky cleared his throat, something you noticed he did whenever he was about to say something that made him uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I haven’t really had a Christmas in, well, 90 years or so. Not that it would mean anything because everyone I love is gone.”

Your stomach sank to the floor, heart filled with a new type of ache that overpowered the dull one you had felt for months now.

But before you could say anything else, Bucky glanced at his watch. “Oh shit.” He stood up from his chair. “Didn’t realize how long I had been here. I should get going. You probably want to actually get some sleep or something. It was nice catching up, Y/n.”

You stood up too, walking with him to the door. Bucky gave you his address while he put his shoes on, in case you needed anything.

“Thanks for the muffins,” you said with a small smile. The two of you stared at each other for one last round of awkward silence before Bucky tipped his head at you and walked out the door.

Hours later and you were in bed staring at the ceiling unable to sleep, thinking about your conversation with Bucky.

“Haven’t had a Christmas in 90 years.”

“Everyone I love is gone.”

You groaned.

Damn you, empathy.

The next day, you were outside his door, phone against your ear.

“Uh, hello?” Bucky’s confused old man voice would have made you laugh were you not a puddle of nerves.

“Hey, I’m uh, outside your place. Can you come out?”

The door opened in less than ten seconds, Bucky in his usual black leather jacket and gloves. The furrowed brows and side smile combined together to make an adorable look of confusion on his face.

No, not adorable. Just confused.

“Afternoon, doll. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You shifted your focus to the ground for a moment before looking back at him. “I changed my mind.” The words came out so fast that they sounded more like a jumbled mess than a coherent sentence. “I want to celebrate Christmas this year.”

His eyes narrowed, but his smile remained. “I thought you didn’t want to feel any holiday cheer?”

Shifting your weight from side to side, you shrugged. “Who knows, maybe some cheer will do me some good. And if it doesn’t, I’ll use it as an excuse to spend the rest of my life with holiday doom and gloom.”

A low, gravelly chuckle rumbled out of Bucky that made your face heat up. “Good for you, Y/n. Let me know how it goes, and if you need tips on doom and gloom, let me know. I’ve got that shit covered.”

Your eyes were back on the ground, fists clenching and unclenching in your coat pockets. “Actually, I wanted to see if you wanted to celebrate with me? We could do Christmas together or something?”

When Bucky didn’t respond, you looked up to meet an expression you had never seen on the man before. Face soft, brows raised slightly, mouth parted open the tiniest bit, as if even the grumpy demeanor that seemed to be his baseline vanished completely and was replaced by the young man Bucky might have been before being shipped off to war a hundred years ago.

Your heart swelled, desperately wishing that look could be the default for him, that he didn’t have to be so sad all the time. That flash of a feeling brought bile to your throat, terror coursing through you at the familiarity of it. You hadn’t experienced that type of longing since…him.

Instead of dwelling in it, you continued your pitch, uncomfortable by the lack of response from Bucky.

“We don’t have to do anything big, obviously. It can just be small stuff. A tree, some decorations, we can make cookies, watch old movies - no Hallmark ones, though. That way we’re not alone, ya know?”

“Sure.”

The swelling of your heart returned, and a smile crept up your lips. “Really?”

He nodded, his own smile growing. “I mean, part of me is wondering if you asked so I could help with the tree,” you both laughed, “But even if that’s the case, I’d really like to.”

Your lips pressed together to prevent your smile from growing too wide. For the first time in a long time, you felt lighter, and the constant state of pain quelled for just a moment.

“Great,” you said softly. “So…how stereotypical do you want to get with this? We could grab hot chocolate and maybe do some tree shopping?”

His grin turned sly. “We gotta stop by the liquor store first for Peppermint Schnapps.”

Your eyes narrowed. “I thought alcohol doesn’t do anything to your system?”

Bucky stepped forward, closing the door to his apartment building behind him. Hands moving to his pockets, he extended his elbow out for you to grab his arm as you both descended down the stairs.

“It’s more for the memory. Stev- uh, we used to drink hot chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps all the time during the holidays.”

The bile returned, and the chill dwelling within your body was no longer caused by the weather. Still, you shook it off and forced a smile. “Peppermint Schnapps it is, then.”

And that was how you and Bucky decided to celebrate Christmas together. It started with the spiked hot chocolates while finding a small, 4ft Fraser fir to take to your home, you arguing with Bucky to let you ‘carry’ the front of it (knowing full well that he was holding it all on his own, you just wanted to contribute). Luckily, you hadn’t yet thrown away all of your decorations, so you were able to get the lights up that evening. The way the dim, colorful glow reflected off Bucky’s face as his eyes stared at them in wonder brought the ache in your heart back in full force.

You didn’t seem to mind it as much, allowing it to linger a little longer before shifting your focus back on the task at hand.

“I don’t have any ornaments,” you lied. There was a box buried deep in the back of your closet, but those carried too many memories. The mental image particular one of a star with a photo of you and Steve immediately brought a film of tears to your eyes.

“No worries, we can go buy some if you’d like?”

That resulted in a Target run where you bought more lights, some pretty ornaments, as well as two silly ones you and Bucky chose for yourselves. You bought one of Snoopy laying on the roof of his decked-out holiday dog house, gaping in horror when Bucky told you he had never seen A Charlie Brown Christmas (something you would rectify that evening), and Bucky found one of a vintage fire engine red Cadillac that looked like the ones back in the ‘40s.

Over the next few weeks, you did it all. Baked holiday cookies, watched all the classic movies, drank more spiked hot chocolate, and continued to decorate your home.

“Don’t you want us to decorate your place, Bucky?” you asked one evening as he stood on a chair to hang the star atop the Christmas tree that you had both decided to name Linus (Bucky had obviously loved the movie). “I’m sure we could find you a tree and everything. I feel bad that we’re only doing this stuff here.”

He shook his head with a small smile, one you had begun to see regularly on that previously grumpy face. “Nah, I barely even have furniture in my apartment so it makes no sense to decorate it when I’ve hardly furnished it. Besides, this place feels more homey to me, so it’s nice to come here as a place to escape to.” He blushed, suddenly realizing the weight of his admission. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “Is that weird?”

No, you thought. “No,” you said, butterflies swarming your stomach. “I don’t think it’s weird at all.”

The smile he gave you then almost split his face in two, and you knew that your own smile mirrored it. It was true. Having Bucky here with you to celebrate Christmas made your place feel like home for the first time in a long time. It was nice to finally have some new memories to replace the ones that brought so much pain.

More than that, it was nice to spend time with Bucky, to get to know the man you had heard so many stories about, who had been masked behind the wall formed from decades of fear and pain. The more time you spent together, the walls you both had up guarding your hearts started to chip away, inviting in new feelings of warmth and happiness.

So no, you didn’t mind that Bucky felt at home with you.

“Alright,” he said on the couch, scrolling through Christmas movies, “I think we’ve watched all of these ones.”

You pointed at the screen when a particular icon appeared. “Let’s watch this one. It’s good.”

He looked at you, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “The Christmas Prince? I thought we weren’t doing corny holiday rom-coms?”

You shrugged. “Maybe I changed my mind.”

The two of you stared at each other for a moment, gazing into each other's eyes and the butterflies danced throughout your entire body.

Finally, he gave you a slow nod, looking down at the remote and hitting the select button. “Let’s do it, then.”

At the start of the film, you and Bucky sat side by side on the couch, a few inches of space separating you. But by the time the main character fell off her horse and was stranded by a pack of wolves, the distance had vanished, your right side pressed against Bucky’s, right hand close to touching his metal one.

So close, that when he shifted, the cool vibranium brushed against yours. It sent a shiver down your spine, not from the temperature of the metal, but from the feeling of his hand touching yours. Something pushed you to move your hand closer, silently telling him that you didn’t mind the contact, and next thing you knew, his hand crept over yours until your fingers were interlaced.

Suddenly the movie was white noise in the background, all of your focus turning to your hand. You turned your head to the side and found Bucky’s eyes looking into yours, his cheeks flush as he licked his bottom lip.

Surely he could hear your heart pounding inside your chest. If he did, he made no mention of it. Instead he just moved his face closer to yours-

A phone buzzed - Bucky’s - pulling you both out of the moment. He sat back and pulled it out of his pocket to turn it off.

But then the screen came into view, and all of the blood that had rushed to your cheeks was gone in a second.

Incoming Call: Stevie

Bucky looked at the phone and then at you, his eyes wide with panic, but it was too late. Your wall was back, and you moved to the edge of the couch, eyes peeled to the screen.

“You should get that,” you forced out through the fog forming in your brain. Your breathing became short, the numbness that had been your companion for months slamming back into you.

He shifted. “I can call him back-”

“Just answer, Bucky.”

You could see him staring at you from your peripherals, but then he sighed, standing up and moving to your bedroom, muffled whispers echoing through the space.

“Hey, Steve. Now’s not a good time.”

Memories you had forced away returned in full force.

“I loved you, Y/n. I swear I did. I just loved her more.”

“I’m good. I’ll visit Sunday, I promise.”

“It’s not you. It’s me.”

“Sam’s fine. He’s in Louisiana with his sister and the kids.”

“Thank you for everything you did. I’ll never forget you.”

“She’s….busy.” Bucky’s voice was almost inaudible now but you still heard the words. Your head shot toward the hall where Bucky was, feeling every agonizing moment of your heart ripping in two. “No, I’m not going to tell her that. She’s…you have to let her go, Steve. She deserved better than this, deserves better than this. Let her move on in peace. I gotta go. Yeah. See you later. Bye.”

He shuffled back down the hall, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes barely meeting yours. Not that he would find any sense of life behind them.

“I didn’t know you still talked to him.” Your voice was a hollow shell compared to just a few moments ago.

Bucky swallowed. “Yeah. He calls every once in a while, and I visit him upstate.”

“Gotcha.”

He stayed glued to his spot. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You shook your head, even though that wasn’t the case. “Does he ask about me a lot?” You hated the flicker of hope that carried in your tone.

He nodded. “All the time.” The truth hurt more than you wanted it to.

There was still one question that you didn’t want to ask, willing your mouth to stay shut, but you needed to ask it. Needed to know the answer. “Was he asking about me before you showed up on my doorstep weeks ago?”

The silence you were met with spoke volumes, and completely tore your heart in two.

“So you were just coming by to check in on me.” You stood up, unable to sit still any longer and you paced along your living room. Tears freely fell down your face. “Steve was too much of a coward to face me, and you came to see that I was doing okay because he felt bad? That’s how it is?”

Bucky took a step forward, hand outstretched but you stepped back. His eyes were glassy with tears he tried to hold back.

“No. Doll, listen, that’s not it at all-” His voice broke and you interrupted him before he could continue.

“It makes sense,” you laughed bitterly. “More sense than you willingly coming to see me because you wanted to. I’m nothing but a burden for him and now for you, forcing you to spend Christmas with me because I’m nothing but a pathetic trainwreck now that he left behind to be with the gorgeous, perfect love of his life.” You collapsed back on the couch, elbows on your knees and hands over your face. “Who would willingly want to spend time with someone so fucking broken? Why would you want to be with the person who wasn’t good enough to make Steve stay?”

Your body was shaking, all of the anguish you had bottled up since Steve had left erupting throughout your body, ready to consume you whole until there was nothing left.

But before you could crumble, strong arms encased you, gripping the sides of your arms to hold you together. You peaked up from behind your hands to find Bucky kneeling on the ground in front of you. Tears streamed down his face, but those stunning blue eyes pierced yours with force that both made you want to look away and keep your gaze locked on them forever.

“Sweetheart, listen to me.” The low, gruff voice was strong. Determined. Grounding. “I didn’t come here for Steve. When he asked, I told him no. I wasn’t going to do his dirty work to clean up the pieces after he left you.” He gently squeezed your arms. “I came here, because I couldn’t get our last conversation out of my head. I couldn’t stop picturing the look on your face when you found out what was happening, before you left. I knew that you were the only one who understood how much it sucked, how much it fucking sucked that he left. That even though he’s still alive, he’s gone, and I lost a part of myself because after he had left I had officially lost everyone I loved from before. It was scary and lonely and it fucking broke my heart. And I wanted to just be with someone who understood that hurt, someone who I could exist in that sadness with and not feel any pressure to feel happy or try to fix myself or anything, I could just be fucking sad and miss my friend.

“But now, without realizing it, that broken part of me has started to heal, and that’s thanks to you. Being with you, whether it’s drinking gross Peppermint Schnapps or watching lame Christmas movies, all of it, all of it has made me feel lighter than I have in decades. Like I could be more than the broken man I’ve been for so long. I’ve felt more like the kid I was in the ‘40s than I ever have. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t gotten to know the amazing, kind, funny, fucking fantastic person you are. And you know what?” He moved to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Steve’s a fucking idiot for not seeing that, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully forgive him for hurting you the way he did.”

At that point, your heavy, swollen eyelids were barely open, body exhausted from the emotional whiplash you just experienced. Your brain was still foggy, but you held onto every word Bucky said, letting it play in a constant loop in your mind.

Without thinking - without allowing yourself to fight back the urge - you leaned forward and wrapped your arms around Bucky’s neck. He stilled for a moment in shock before melting into your embrace, hands rubbing circles around your back.

The two of you stayed there for an unknown number of minutes, holding one another, clinging to one another in silence.

Finally, you whispered into his ear, “Thank you.”

He chuckled, squeezing you a little more tightly. “Thank you, doll. I can’t begin to express how much all of this has meant to me. How much you mean to me.”

Whenever Steve had told you he loved you, that you meant the world to him, it would bring both butterflies in your stomach and a pit for them to flutter out of. They were words you longed to hear, but couldn’t quite believe that they were true, like you hadn’t done enough to deserve them.

Now, in this moment, hearing them from Bucky, you realized that it wasn’t about whether or not you deserved them. It was about being with someone you felt completely, utterly, wholeheartedly comfortable with. Someone you trusted, someone you felt safe giving your heart to.

So when he said that you meant something to him, you believed it to be true, and that left only the feeling of butterflies.

A knock on your door had you barreling through your apartment to throw it open, a huge grin on your face to match the one on the figure before you.

“Merry Christmas, Bucky,” you said, jumping forward to hug him.

He sighed as his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you tightly to him. “Merry Christmas, Y/n.”

You quickly pulled away and stepped back to inspect his outfit. As promised, Bucky had worn his set of red flannel pajamas, identical to the ones you had on.

He couldn’t even pretend to be grump about it when he saw your smile widen.

“Alright, doll, what’s on the docket for today?”

You already had the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas blasting through the apartment, and a pot of coffee brewed, so you poured him a cup and let him stash the presents he bought under the tree. The two of you made breakfast, which consisted of a ridiculous amount of food and Bucky kept whining that the bacon wasn’t crisp enough and you threatened to pour pancake batter down his shirt, which then led to an impromptu tickle fight in your tiny kitchen. You eventually called a truce when Bucky cheated and used his super soldier strength to pin your arms down with one handle to tickle your waist with the other.

After breakfast, where Bucky finally admitted that the bacon was delicious, you sat by Linus the Fraser fir to open gifts. You got him a new pair of leather gloves, a few books, and a mug that said “World’s Best Grandpa.” He got you books (duh), the comfiest pair of fuzzy socks you had ever worn in your life, and candles that ‘had a smell that reminded him of you.’

You had also gotten him a thick, blue wool blanket.

“I know you don’t get cold,” you started, expression a bit more sheepish now, “But blankets do so much more than that. They’re soft, comforting. I thought it might help you feel more relaxed at home.”

Bucky’s jaw worked and he gave you a small smile as he wrapped the blanket around him, looking snug as a bug and absolutely adorable.

“This is awesome, thanks sweetheart.” He leaned over to the side to grab two more presents and extended them out to you. “Wanted to save the best for last. At least, I hope they’re the best.” He chuckled.

Oh, they were the best alright. A photo of the two of you from the other night, the beautiful lights of Linus creating a perfect backdrop behind your smiling faces, your Snoopy and red Cadillac ornaments hung next to each other in the background. It was placed in a chestnut wood frame that had “Our First Christmas” etched at the bottom. It was so perfect, so lovely that you felt tears welling in your eyes.

The next gift was wrapped in a small box, and you gasped when you opened it, your tear filled eyes looking down at a thin silver bracelet that had a small charm of the letter “B” hanging from it.

“I hope it’s not too much,” Bucky said nervously, scratching the back of his head. “I saw it at one of the shops and it made me think of you-”

“I love it,” you cut him off, pulling the bracelet out of the box. “I love all of it. These are perfect, Bucky. Thank you.”

You swore the smile on that man’s face could have put the damn sun to shame. You extended your hand out to him along with the bracelet, and he delicately clasped it around your wrist. His fingers lingered there a few seconds after, stroking your soft skin and sending shivers down your body.

You cleared your throat. “I have one more thing,” you said, suddenly sheepish as you stood up from your spot on the ground, making your way to your room.

Bucky called out to you when he heard some loud shuffling, “Do you need help in there?”

“No,” you said with a strained voice, “I got it.”

This present wasn’t wrapped, just donned with a large gold bow at the top.

Bucky stared at you in shock as you shuffled the small black bookcase into the living room. You stood next to it with your hands on your hips, slightly out of breath.

“I wasn’t sure what the color palette was - if there is any - at your place, but figured that with you black would be the safest option. I put it together myself with those shitty IKEA instructions, but I’ve built a Billy the Bookshelf Boyfriend before, so hopefully I didn’t totally screw it up. If I did, feel free to take it apart and put it back together correctly. It’s not much, but you said you barely had any furniture so at least this is a start, and we can definitely go on a field trip to work on getting your apartment properly furnished-”

He was so quick, so smooth, that your brain couldn’t even process that he was moving until his hands were around your face and his lips were pressed against yours. Once your brain finally had a moment to catch up, your arms were wrapped around his waist, pulling him close to you as you kissed him back, drinking in as much of him as possible.

It would be the first of a lifetime of kisses you shared with Bucky.

Just as this would be the first of a lifetime of Christmases you shared with him.

Thank you for reading! Feel free to check out my other stuff here. :)

Tags: @maladaptivexxdaydreaming @eclipses-and-moondust @itsdawnashlie @peaches1958 @blackwidownat2814 @barnesafterglow

If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me through my kofi account!

[little-svt]

Happy Over 50 Followers to us! Might as well put a request in because I love my baby’s writing 🥰🥰

Request: CG! Wonwoo and the song Guard You by Young K

FEMME-READER | ANGST | TW - severe mental illness

Lyrics: “So you won't get any scars, I'll hold you Even when I'm hurt, I'll guard you No need to worry, I'm here for you Look at my smile, it's my all for you When all lights fade When I sink to the ground When I drown in despair I'll still hold you close~”

Wc: 1.4k

Taglist: @sweetiehyuka @pastel-princess-please @kiki-woo @fishsquishh

Guard You

Another day of work completed, to start again after Wonwoo got his measly 4 hours of sleep. Tiresome was too mild a word to describe it. Working a full-time job, a part-time job that may as well be full-time, that’s what it took to help the two of you get by. Both of you were born to the working class, riding the edge of poverty, and no matter how he’d tried to pull the two of you out, it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

Wonwoo couldn’t lie, not in the face of pure fact. It’d have been easier, even if just a little, if you worked too. But he knew of every bit of damage you had, the weight of your baggage before he’d ever thought up the idea to rescue you from your shit excuse for parents, straight out of high school. Plans. Yea. He’d wanted to lift you up, give you a better life than the one he’d saved you from. So, it didn’t matter how hard he had to work, you’d make it. He was never going to give up on you.

Days like this one, he wasn’t so hopeful. But he knew you were doing your best, with school, with pulling yourself out of bed every day. That in itself made him so proud. And next, he’d just be wishing he didn’t have to work so much so he could be there for you like you needed him to be.

You were your own worst enemy most days, stuck in your head. Another dreadful week at University. Some classes were good, enough to keep you engaged when they were something you were actually interested in. But the rest of the day you were just watching the clock, waiting for the moment you could crash into your bed and stain your pillows with your tears again and again.

Finally, you greeted your empty apartment, your beaten old sofa, at least everything smelled of him. Falling onto the couch, you reached out to grab your headphones from the scratched-up coffee table you and Wonwoo had found at a garage sale and placed them on your head. They didn’t need to be on, but you’d gotten used to the pressure and the little bit of noise cancellation they provided was comforting.

You couldn’t tell if it’d been hours or minutes, but at some point you needed up with your favorite bunny plush in your arms with some noise of a television show playing in the background. It was dark now, you were still feeling foggy, but mostly alone. Always alone, and like always, there never needed to be a reason for your heart to ache and for the tears to come by the bucket. Unbearable. But ‘unbearable’ was your normal, something no one could ever truly get used to even when it numbed you inside out. More and more time would blur past.

Another late night, Wonwoo’s body ached with the wear and tear of working 16 hours straight. Not the worst shift he’d had. Haggardly digging through his jeans pocket, he pulled out his keys as quietly as possible. At least he hoped you’d be sleeping at four in the morning, he himself was ready to pass out standing given the opportunity.

Cracking the door slowly, only the purple-blue light of the television gave glow to the room as it played something Wonwoo wasn’t entirely familiar with. It wasn’t something he thought you’d watch, and seeing your unmoving figure lying on the sofa, he assumed you really were asleep.

Sighing, Wonwoo slipped off his tattered sneakers and tip-toed around the furniture. He wished he had the strength he’d had before, he’d just carry you to bed without disturbing you. Unfortunately, the past two years alone had taken it out of him. Going to wake you, he quickly realized you were in fact awake, eyes in a dead stare at nothing in front of you, silently soaking the fabric of the sofa beneath you.

“Y/n? I’m home…What’s going on?”, crouching on the floor, he rubbed up and down your arm, his stomach aching at how often he came home to you like this.

“Y/n…?”

It always took you a moment to pull out of it, the tears became sobs as you let yourself be held in his arms.

“Appa…”, you cried as he stroked the hair on your head, bringing his head down to yours. Often, that helped, being close to him. Just his gentle touch, firm and kind. Genuine.

Even though you tried your best to hold off, trying your damnedest to be less of a grievance to him. Regression was the only thing that could get you to sleep most nights and once he was there, your only source of safety and you’d sunk into it, you were gone.

Wonwoo’s hands were growing rough and he winced at each movement of his muscles, you could practically feel the grave heaviness of his fatigue. So, you did what you thought was right.

“Hey. Wait-“, he stammered. But he wasn’t completely oblivious as to why you pulled from him. It wasn’t new.

“What are you doing, baby…”

“This! I’m doing it again…”, wiping your tears, you set your plushie on the couch, digging around your mind for an escape. Any excuse you could use to busy yourself so he wouldn’t be worried anymore. Because you had to be fine. You couldn’t drag him down like this again and again.

“Go get some sleep, Woo, okay?”, you took a deep breath, straightening your posture and attempting some sort of performance of what you thought a mentally well person should look like. Standing, your eyes darted around, anywhere but him as you tried to calm your mind. What could you do? Laundry, yes there was work to do. If you’d tried to get a wink of sleep now you’d only interrupt his with some awful brand of the usual night terrors that came on the worst of days. Most days.

Wonwoo didn’t look at you. He didn’t move.

“Sit down.”, he spoke calmly. Why you even bothered was beyond both of you, you were helpless. Unable to not listen to him. So you sat, digging at your hands, frantically fidgeting with your fingers.

Frowning, he brought himself to sit up on the sofa next to you, pulling you down to his chest with another aspirated sigh.

“I can’t keep… I can’t keep doing this to you. Being such a damned burden all the time!”, you broke down again.

Wonwoo was quiet reassurance, gentle, always there, silently supporting you from the sidelines. More touches than words but nevertheless, that same sweet softnesses. ‘Shhh, it’s okay. I’ve got you’ or ‘you’re not a burden, y/n’. But it killed him to see you beat yourself up. As if you hadn’t, as if you weren’t suffering enough. More than anyone ever should.

“You will never be a burden to me. I don’t care how many times I have to reassure you, until the day I die, I will.”, he took a breath, giving your shoulder an affirming squeeze, his other clenched firmly in a fist. This was too important. Every word., “Your happiness is all that matters to me. No matter how hard things get-“

Laying back on the sofa and taking you with him he gave a small laugh, “-or how we may fall… I will hold you..”, rubbing circles on your back he continued, “…as always, I will guard you from yourself, and take on as much of your pain as I have to. Until I’m drowning in it as long as I can see you smile…”

It took a lot out of him but the way you burst into tears again, that was enough for both of you. It needed to be said. Tired Wonwoo apparently had a lot to say.

“Now if I’m gonna sleep it’s gonna be right where you are. Okay?”, exhaling loudly again he looked down, giving your cheek a little stroke as if to say ‘I’m out of words baby, are you okay?’

“Appa? I so tired now…”

“I know.”

Taking his time, he found the softest wash cloth you owned, washing your face for bed and running it over your sore, tear puffed eyes to hopefully soothe them. Even if only a little.

His next alarm was just over three hours away. Three hours of sleep and he was finally able to get you into bed, humming some made-up tune with whatever energy he had left to soothe his precious little one.

“Though a permanent scar

May be the price of holding you

I'll give my all to you, to you”

🧸End note: HI MY 👑🐰💛! Thank you so much and congrats to us!! I was so excited to see that you won! So have some caregiver!wonwoo. I hope I wrote him correctly, you know it’s my first time 😅. Honestly giveaways are really fun so I’ll do this again for our 100 followers as well! This song was so intense, I wasn’t expecting it but 🥺🥺 I know you’re not big on angst, but this is some angst that you need. I’m sorry if this isn’t relatable for everyone but I know there’s a lot of mental illness that goes along with age regression. Eden and I aren’t the only ones who could use something like this… ~ 🐶🐰🍓

🧸Masterlist🧸

[yandere-sins]

What if father! bakugou hit his daughter a bit to hard and she gives him a scare by going unconscious, I know this is kinda lame but I thought it was an interesting idea!

Not lame at all, thanks for requesting ^-^

»»————-———— ♡ ————————-«« 

♡ Even though he’s not the quick-tempered teenager anymore he once was, Bakugou is still known for being a hot-headed, hot-blooded hero. However, his family almost always had him as a sweet and protective father, or well, at least as long as they made him feel like the best man in the whole world. You, at least, always had a bit of privilege as a daughter, which you got from your other parent always taking the blame and punishments for either of you acting out of line. You only ever knew your dad as kind and caring for you, keeping you safe and tugging you in at night lovingly all your childhood long. He always took the few extra minutes to see you off properly before going on a mission, reassuring you that he’ll be fine and that he’s strong. You never doubted it.

♡ For most of your innocent childhood, your dad was the greatest for you, building you a playground and taking you out to get ice cream even though it was late. You didn’t know he only went to the store with you to give his partner a bit of time to ‘think about what they did’. Or that whenever he put you in your playground and told you to build the biggest sandcastle so you could play princess and hero, he actually was just making time to remind your other parent of how great he was as they were unhappy again. You truly loved your father, but only because he was never rough with you. All that abuse behind closed doors was kept from your image of your perfect happy family.

♡ Until you were old enough, at least. Bakugou got a little less careful with his words, threats, and narcissism. He still regarded you as his precious little treasure, but even you had to learn to bow to his will once you had one of your own. Typically, children would start pushing boundaries at some point, see if they can bow and bend what had been set in stone for years. Suddenly, your dad wasn’t the center of your attention anymore. Now you wanted to play with other friends and read books independently without him. Bakugou did not take the changes well of you becoming your own person, often making you quit whatever you were doing to spend time with him, which got frustrating for both of you rather quickly. When you started to stay up later, reading under your blanket, you began to hear crying and screams even though the walls were so thick. The more you realized it sounded like your parents were fighting, the more the sounds scared you.

♡ There were also the bandages and band-aids that you had always noticed but never thought about so much on your parent. You used to kiss them better when you were young, but the older you got, the more you felt a sense of dread every time you saw them, wondering how your parent could be so clumsy as they claimed to be. And now, going to school and talking to other people, you heard rumors about bad treatment in families, and it made you wonder if that was happening to you too. But your dad loves you, and your other parent always takes you into their arms when you ask if they are okay and tells you that everything is perfectly fine. What are you supposed to believe?

♡ But all these questions honestly answer themselves the older you get. Outwardly, everything is perfect, but you fight with your father more as a teenager. He gets irritated, you disobey his orders, and both of you completely explode. Bakugou no longer is your perfect, loving father, no matter how much you wish those times back where he still was there for you always. You keep secrets, your parent keeps secrets, and together, you have secrets from Bakugou. He is too controlling with the things you do and say, tries to make you stay home when you have nothing left to do there, and just want to see your friends. It’s a shame, but you don’t see him as the hero he always pretends to be anymore. Looking at your other parent, you can’t even respect him for how he treats them, much less you. You’d want nothing more than the happy family of the past, but you long realized that you simply don’t have that kind of parents.

♡ And still, he never hurt you aside from the words he spits in your face. Cutting him out more of your life, you start sneaking out, doing dumb shit that teenagers do, and you fall in love. Suddenly, with the rose-colored glasses on, life gets a bit better. If only you didn’t need to go home all the time. If only you had a bit more freedom, less controlling and following all that your father wants and expects of you. Your life would have been perfect, but one night as you sneak back into your room, everything finally collapses as your father is waiting for you. Angry.

♡ Most of the screaming from the argument you two just had echoes in your ear as you feel your body slump to the ground. There is nothing you can do, just the sound of your father’s voice being the last thing you hear as he screams your name, the echo of the horrifying crack that went through you, and then everything goes black. You never doubted he was strong, but perhaps, you lived in the fantasy that he would never do anything to you for way too long. It’s not until you wake up again that you really realize what happened, your body hurting while being held tensely in two strong arms, the rocking chair going back and forth. It’s the same feeling as when you were a child and were inconsolable, your father rocking you gently in his arms, but this time you knew it was his fault as you started to cry.

♡ Bakugou only hushes you, holding you closer to him. It’s so dark all around you, with a warm blanket hanging off your body, but you don’t feel comforted at all. Your body feels like it’s been hit by a bulldozer. It doesn’t help that the position is awkward now that you are bigger and don’t really fit on Bakugou’s lap anymore. But you’re also hyper-aware of the big hands that hurt you so badly, now running up and down your arm reassuringly. Once, they meant safety for you, but now you were scared. Scared of the things that could happen, even if you least expected it would be to you.

♡ He tells you quietly but sternly about the changes. How you’re not to go out anymore and how he’s going to board the windows shut. How there’s no one more important than your father, and how you should never go around and do things inappropriately for your age. Good kids don’t kiss random people, and if they really loved you, they’d let him approve them beforehand. You are a good kid, right? You are his daughter. And your father will choose everything for your future that is good for you. The best thing you can do is rely on your dad and always look to him for help and support with these matters, just like in the past. He’s your hero, remember? He’ll do everything for his princess no matter what.

♡ You can’t determine if he’s still angry or perhaps... scared, because he only keeps digging his fingers deeper into your arm and hips as he holds you. As if he was desperately holding on to you, scared to lose you. Maybe, for the first time, his behavior actually frightened him, a feeling he rarely ever felt. Still, Bakugou had to make sure to keep his control, to not let it get out of hand again. Because you don’t want a repeat of what just happened either, do you? So you keep on crying quietly as he explains new rules, how the future he has in mind for you looks like, and he tells you he loves you—open feelings that he rarely admits out loud.

♡ But you are still too young to know the whole truth. How he insisted on being the only one for his partner, and now that he has you, Bakugou can’t imagine a world where he isn’t your number one as well. And yet, for the first time, you managed to make his hands shiver and thoughts spiral after he hit you. No sense of accomplishment or justification overcame him after your - rightful, as he believed - punishment. It was nothing like punishing his partner for acting out. He can’t deal with losing you, but he almost killed you in an attempt to keep you closer to him. You managed to actually make him feel guilty about what he did, how he used his strength, and it angers him again, a feeling he won’t be able to control very long. A part of him wants to leave to do something about this explosive anger he feels for himself and the whole situation, but... he can’t. Bakugou can’t let you go, or you might drop as if you were dead in front of him again. And as if you agree with him, you merely nod along as he unsuccessfully tries to calm you, reminding him that he already broke this relationship beyond compare.