Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

Everybody warns about bad influences, but it’s these things already inside you that are going to take you down. The restlessness in your gut, like tomcats gone stupid with their blood feuds, prowling around in the moon-dead dark. The hopeless wishes that won’t quit stalking you: some perfect words you think you could say to somebody to make them see you, and love you, and stay.

Laughing because it’s so fucking good to hurt that bad. Most people never get anywhere close to being that much alive.

He said half of him was sorry over it, and the other half wasn’t, so now he would stay cut in two forever.

Here’s a knot I can tie, I was thinking. I will never let it unravel.

but we came out of too-hungry mothers. Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.

As if it’s only by hurting yourself that you can be true.

Because I never could. Good people don’t give up on the ones they love.

He’s that same kind of good like you are. Like there’s some metal or something in you that won’t melt down, no matter what.”

The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.

wanting to see the rest of us hurt, because she was hurting. You have to wonder how much of the whole world’s turning is fueled by that very fire.

If I kept driving I might stay ahead of the monsters.

Fast Forward dared me and I went, took the devil’s bath and came out with blood on my hands. Where do you go after that? All I knew to do was keep putting my feet to the rocky ground, waiting to register something in the body instead of the brain.

Trust the road. Because nobody stays, in the long run you’re on your own with your ghosts. You’re the ship, they’re the bottle.

We all want what we’re used to.

To be here was to be known.

about home 🏠 😭

Everything I looked at made my eyes water. It felt like being in love with somebody that’s married. I could never have this. Staying here, alone and sober, was beyond my powers. And I still wanted it with all my hungry parts.

I wanted so much not to be alone.

Headed for the one big thing I know is not going to swallow me alive.