Heather Lewis > Quotes

“The sweet sadness of this made me want to cry. And then before I'd registered wanting this I'd already begun it. Had begun to cry from that place so big and so old I didn't know where it began or what it concerned.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“The pain was there from the start--big and solid. I swallowed tides of it. Opened to more of it, to its weird safety.”
― Heather Lewis

“I'd seen myself in her. Seen all the holes in my system—in me—and how apparent they were to anyone who cared to notice.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“Here I was again with all this inside me I wanted to say but with the absolute wrong person to tell it to.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“The way she kissed me put me somewhere I couldn't recognize. It was too familiar. Familiar as something I'd wanted forever but never quite had.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“I slept, really slept deeply, for the first time in longer than I could determine. Still, I woke uneasy again.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“I kissed her forever, her belly, her thighs, and I could feel her hands in my hair. Could hear her saying little things. Murmuring in a way I couldn't make out and didn't quite want to—afraid it might sound too much like what Beth said. And if they were both saying the same kinds of things, how could I believe either one of them? How could it be any more than the things people say when they're together like this?”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“I just lay there, and gave in to her hands, and her mouth; she seemed to like what she was doing, liked doing it to me. Before, I wasn't sure who I was for her. This time I was pretty sure I was me and I liked that and liked that she liked it.”
― Heather Lewis

“And then I wondered how much anyone can know of the things they desire too much, these being the most frightening of all and sometimes with good reason.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“I stood there, wondering at what I was doing. Not just this minute but with the whole of my life. Wondering how in the hell I'd com here and from where.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“I spent the day in bed nursing a loneliness too large to ignore. A lovesick that wouldn't let me alone.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“She whispered soothing things to me that weren't quite like words. She held me tightly. I didn't know which thing was breaking me, only knew I was broken.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice

“With my soreness, riding was just about a constant reminder of her hand in me. This hurt linked up with replays in my head. Memories of fuckings, which I wouldn't see at first as longings.”
― Heather Lewis

“I lay there spent, or expended. I went to a place of not knowing anything anymore, especially who I was, or always had been. So maybe I had got this all wrong, even backward. That Beth was the one making me see things inside, go places I didn't want to go, but had to. And what I found there wasn't ugly, not exactly. Messy and massive, monstrous even, but not evil, more a behemoth than a demon.
I stayed in a half sleep for what must've been hours. Stayed suspended somewhere. And I suppose she slept too, sort of, because then it was light out and she got up from the bed cursing herself, but no longer cursing me. Maybe she simply realized there was someplace else she needed to be, and hours ago.
She left hurriedly. I didn't know what I felt or how I felt but most of all I had this sense that whatever was inside me no longer mattered. That I'd forfeited all of that, forfeited mattering to her. I believed there'd be no point in ever going near her again.
And then I was sleeping some more. And the place I slept was endlessly black. Blank and empty before it gained substance. Before it consoled me in a way I remembered from somewhere as old as the place I'd gone in those times she'd loved me.
Then I was waking up again. And not wanting this, wanting so much to stay encompassed in darkness, this darkness, belonging only to me. But right away thinking at least I had that money. That it would buy me the time to work these things out—work out who I was now, or who I'd been all along.
I nearly expected Beth to have left money, feared maybe she had. That I'd find bills crumpled somewhere near me. But she hadn't done this so I could slip back into that darkness. And it pulled me back, encircled and held on. And I was clinging to it, not wanting ever to leave it because it felt so much like I'd finally come home.”
― Heather Lewis, Notice