13th Balloon Quotes

“I often confuse
a sense of futility
with a call to action.”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“How many thousands
of stories like yours
have been told
and forgotten how many
stories of lovingly durable nurses
of hospital sheets of IV tubes
dripping saline and morphine
How many stories of drugs
that would haul you
along in their wake for a while
but finally
let you sink”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“There are days when everything
feels like a metaphor
for your having died

There are days
when nothing does”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“I was clever
in a severely limited sense”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“As kids we were warned
against playing with gender
as if it were a plastic bag
THIS IS NOT A TOY
but here are some pictures
of you in drag
getting ready to head out to a party
or maybe that was the party”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“For me elegy
is a Ouija planchette
something I pretend not to touch
as I push it around trying
to make it say
what I want it to say”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“William S. Burroughs said cut
into the present and the future leaks out

When I cut into the past
what leaks out is you”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon

“Since you died the house style could best
be described as leaves that cling
to trees too long into winter”
― Mark Bibbins, 13th Balloon