Alex > Alex's Quotes

“Beasts bounding through time.

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by the Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory

moving this little bit of light toward
us
impossibly”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“FRAGMENT, I am a fragment of us. I am a fragment composed
of fragments. Mosaic, pastiche, ruin. Everyday
consciousness proposes lightbulb, ropeswing, teapot,
David Bowie, your sweater on, your sweater off, tomatillo,
all associated. Parts suggesting the whole
they long to be gathered into.”
― Rebecca Lindenberg, Love, an Index

“I think I like my brain best
in a bar fight with my heart.
I think I like myself a little broken,
with rough edges, a little harder
to grasp. I like poetry
better than therapy anyway.
The poems never judge me
for healing wrong.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night”
― Sarah Kay, No Matter the Wreckage: Poems

“I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine so you know that there's nothing but light when I see you.”
― Shinji Moon, The Anatomy of Being

“Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.

It has been a beautiful
fight.

Still
is.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“the courage it took to get out of bed each
morning
to face the same things
over and over
was
enormous.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“there’s nothing to
discuss
there’s nothing to
remember
there’s nothing to
forget

it’s sad
and
it’s not
sad

seems the
most sensible
thing
a person can
do
is
sit
with drink in
hand
as the walls
wave
their goodbye
smiles

one comes through
it
all
with a certain
amount of
efficiency and
bravery
then
leaves

some accept
the possibility of
God
to help them
get
through

others
take it
staight on

and to these

I drink
tonight.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“and even the trees we walked
under
seemed
less than
trees
and more like everything
else.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“i don't pay attention to the
world ending.
it has ended for me
many times
and began again in the morning.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

“where you are. is not who you are. – circumstances”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“in our own ways we all break. it is okay to hold your heart outside of your body for days. months. years. at a time. – heal”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“i think one of the most pathological things i have ever seen is stabbing someone and then telling them that their pain and anger over being stabbed is making you sad. – white guilt”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“no'
might make them angry
but
it will make you free.

- if no one has ever told you,
your freedom is
more important than their anger.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

“And in the end, we were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”
― Christopher Poindexter

“sometimes
i just feel impossible.
like life wasn't meant
for me.
like it was an
interview
i showed up to
drunk out of
my mind.”
― Christopher Poindexter, Naked Human

“maybe people are no longer
beautiful to us because
we construct them with our
thoughts,
walking around the earth
building humans
like we are gods.”
― Christopher Poindexter, Naked Human

“One day, I might perhaps become something so small and insignificant to you that you only think of me as often as you think of the little particles of dust that you can see floating around the window in the late afternoon sun. If I'm lucky enough, you'll think of me as often as never thinking of me again at all.”
― x q, Semicolon

“Remnants of you will perhaps always remain deeply rooted in places even I cannot reach”
― xq, Semicolon

“Don't you do that.
Don't you look at what I had for you and call it weak.
Not when you were the one afraid of it.
I stood there with my hands open,
my mouth bruised tender with supplication.
Don't you dare treat me like a victim of my own emotions,
like being moved to my knees by love
was a mistake that I regret.
I will go to my grave with the memory of the bravery in my bones.”
― Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried

“All of us need to stop apologizing for having been to hell and come back breathing”
― Clementine von Radics, As Often As Miracles

“On other planets, they look up and wish upon you. Because on other planets, you live on a star.”
― pleasefindthis, I Wrote This For You: Just the Words

“For everyone I meet with your name
I'm sorry.”
― Trista Mateer, Honeybee

“Some people are born flight risks. It is no shortcoming of yours that they cannot keep their feet on the ground. It is not your fault that they cannot seem to stand in place. They are not leaving you; they are just leaving.”
― Trista Mateer, Honeybee

“Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried.”
― Sarah Kay, B

“Why is the word yes so brief?
it should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,
so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it.”
― Vera Pavlova, If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems

“all the parts of me
i did not show you
were the ones
i wanted you to notice.”
― Christina Strigas, Love & Vodka: a book of poetry for glass hearts

“Killing yourself slowly is still killing yourself. Wanting to die is not the same as wanting to come home. Recovery is hard work. Not wanting to die is hard work.”
― Blythe Baird, Give Me A God I Can Relate To

“This is what it's like to say goodnight and mean goodbye.”
― Neil Hilborn, Our Numbered Days