Love is a Dog from Hell

by Charles Bukowski

“Don’t ever bring a whore around,” I tell my few friends, “I’ll fall in love with her.” “You couldn’t stand a good woman, Bukowski.” I need a good woman. I need a good woman more than I need this typewriter, more than I need my automobile, more than I need Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I can taste her in the air, I can feel her at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built for her feet to walk upon, I can see pillows for her head, I can feel my waiting laughter, I can see her petting a cat, I can see her sleeping, I can see her slippers on the floor. I know that she exists but where is she upon this earth as the whores keep finding me?

Look, Mike, no man is invincible. Some day you’ll be sent mad by eyes like a child’s crayon drawing. You won’t be able to drink a glass of water or walk across a room. There will be the walls and the sound of the streets outside, and you’ll hear machineguns and mortar shells. That’ll be when you want it and can’t have it. The teeth are never finally the teeth of love.