You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense

by Charles Bukowski

some men never die and some men never

live but we’re all alive tonight.

naturally, we are all caught in downmoods, it’s a matter of chemical imbalance and an existence which, at times, seems to forbid any real chance at happiness.

all I had to do was be there.

it’s a lonely time, she sings, and you’re not mine and it makes me feel so bad, this thing of being me…

everything is so sweetly awful, so continuously and sweetly awful: the art of consummation: life eating life…

we only have ourselves to go on, and it’s enough…

the impossibility of being human

the impossibility of being human all too human this breathing in and out out and in

there is a place in the heart that will never be filled

and even the trees we walked under seemed less than trees and more like everything else.

but, under all that, to me she’s the flower, I see her as she was before she was ruined by the lies: theirs and hers.

she likes that and I like it too because to make a thing true all you’ve got to do is believe.

it has been a beautiful fight still is.

it was one of those times where nothing was lost because nothing had ever been found

we know that we are beaten. NOTHING. now it’s just a matter of continuing anyhow—

do these things happen to other people or am I just the chosen one?

the courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.

nerves: large crowds of people more than unsettle me.

either they’re right and I’m wrong or I’m right and they’re all wrong or maybe it’s some place in between.

I look into myself and find perfect emptiness.

well, I’ve gotten this far and that’s plenty.

the price of creation is never too high. the price of living

with other people always is.

I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife inside because there was no alternative except to hide as long as possible— not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: trying to connect.

sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.

something is working toward you right now, and I mean you and nobody but you.

I was young but always alone

nobody ever missed me.

there are certainly any number of lonely people without much to do with their nights.

I love you but don’t know what to do.

don’t we realize the peace of aging gently?

we are both melting in the same fire.