I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

All I have is my soul, and somebody told me that’s poetry.

We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep.

I was surprised, as always, be how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.

Sure baby, mañana. It was always mañana. For the next few weeks that was all I heard––mañana a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.

Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don’t go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.

For years now, I’ve wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.

Love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, I’ll be anybody you want me to be. Use me. Change me. I can be thin with big breasts and big hair. Take me apart. Make me into anything, but just love me.

Well, I’m going to get out of bed every morning, breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while, I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out. And then, after a while, I won’t have to think about how great and perfect I had it once.

I was on the path to recovery, but I can feel myself relapsing now. Demons are crawling out from the floorboards and wrapping their webbed fingers around me, pulling me down into the darkness of the shadows. It feels safe there. So safe. I’m letting them take me. I need my demons. Without them, I’m left with the pang of emptiness. I need them to fill me back up.

Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.

you’re the closest thing i have to bring up in a conversation about love that didn’t last. but i could never call you mine, because i could never call myself yours. it’s not that our love died, it just never really bloomed. no, i can’t let go of you. you’re holding me back without even trying to. i can’t let go, i can’t move on from the past. without lifting a finger, you’re holding me back. no, we didn’t die, we just never had a chance to grow. it might not make much sense to you or any of my friends, but somehow you still affect the things i do. you can’t lose what you never had.

She left a note in the kitchen, next to the grocery list.
It said, you don’t even know who I am,
you left me a long time ago.
you don’t even know who I am.
So, what do you care if I go?

The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistc. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantely in the heart.