Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream Quotes

“For as long as I shall live,
I look forward to never growing old

with you.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I remember when all of my dreams were in rainbow.
Now, everything I do I have to Technicolor
because it's all become so black and white...
so subtle hues,
no longer Prismacolor me and you.
I sharpen those pencils,
but they still come up dull.
I shade and shade and shade,
but it all comes up a shady review.

I miss the rainbow
when my dreams were caught
all throughout the day;
and not just late at night,
when I couldn't sleep
because everything was dark,
and too steep to climb,
and only in rhyme because
I have not become THAT gray poet.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Every time you lie to me,
I still know your truth.
Every time you tell me
you're not allowed to love me anymore,
I can still hear the gospel behind your tongue.
And, that is not my silent desperation;
that is your desperate silence.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“You can keep moving
your blowup mattress around
in the night
where the shadows keep you pretty,
and cover your face,
so that no one can see
that you have a home in me
that you won't admit
you'll never
and always
be:

the beach bum of my heart.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“His hot and bothered body of sweat
felt refreshing against my flesh,
like the water beads on a frosty Mason jar of lemonade
the summer of my first blush with self-rule and release,
even though it was February.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“People promise each other the world
until they are not given it.
We give until we no longer receive
something of equal or greater value.

Life and love is nothing more than

re-gifting.

When we don't like what we get,
we save it for someone else,
and hope, with all of our hearts,
the the next package is better.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“He didn't see women as people;
he saw them as trophies,
and that is precisely why

he never won me.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Sometimes the loneliest place you will ever be
is in bed beside someone
you cannot reach.


There is no love
in our love

anymore.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“The spiking temps spiked a fever for cool commons,
so I made a plate of tapenade, bruschetta, and prosciutto,
with orange creamsicle martinis flowing like a

Zen fountain. It was hard for me to believe
that I woke up that morning fighting back tears
for no reason and all kinds of reasons. It is still...

hard for me to believe that you have become no reason,

at all.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I have to know if you'll read this
the same way that I wrote it,
because if you can't,
then you're nothing more than a rough draft
that I don't care to edit.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Don't keep coloring in their lines
waiting for them to sign on the dotted...
for you will become...
...overdrawn.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I've lost touch with myself.
It seems like she and I have not touched base for ages,
I can't remember the last time I talked to her, honest to God.
She's always been my best friend—my vicarious better half.
It's such a shame, really...
I wish I knew what she was up to these days.
I really, REALLY do.

It's not as though you can close a bond like ours
when the room gets too messy; you can't just shut the door.
It's common knowledge they'll only open a window
...and sneak out.
I don't know where she is now.
She could be on a train to the other coast, for all I know.
I quit listening to her wishes a long time ago.

Shame on me.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“In the few minutes that he sleeps,
I am with myself again—
that part of me that makes me...

...me,

which is sometimes

you.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I save a piece of paper that has
the indentation of your name on it—
your signature...
...move.

I knew that I shouldn't have let you
push down so hard.

Your memory left a mark
on so many pages after,

if you couldn't tell,

as I publish again

to press on....”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Today I hate myself for loving you,
and I hate myself for not being strong enough to love you
back...
when I know broken boys like you need me, too.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I stopped telling you
all of my secrets
when you became
my biggest one.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“It takes a lot for me to close a door,
but when I do,

I slam it.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I can hear the moths crackling and burning on the bulb,
I see myself as one of them, flitting around this porch light.
I can imagine me bewitched by the wink and sparkle,
but I couldn't imagine myself taking up camp here, forever.

I am suddenly abundantly aware that this is not even summer yet.
This is just a porch with a jerrybuilt swing and creaky planked floors,
a frayed recliner, and splays of gray hairs just (now) taking root.
I remember that first summer when we strung sprinklers like toy lanterns...”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“So many things in this life that you would
consider trash
are my personal diplomas,
my favored scars,
my most priceless junkyard.

So many things that meant nothing to you
are the encyclopedias to my whole,
are the ticket fares to my soul,
are the things that you repoed
when I caught you dressed in black...
wearing the things you've stolen,
filling pockets of me,
swollen.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Little snail,
out after a hard rain,
hiding in her shell—
trying to make it to the
wishing well,
but being told
that she's too small to
lift the pennies in...
because she did not make them
on her own.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“When tongues lack bravery
and hearts protect their own,
eyes always tell the truth.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Sometimes it's the distance between us
that keeps us close.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“If you're going to force me out,
someone else will find their way in.

That is key.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“This is where I long to get home to after vacation.

This is where I feel comfy in my pajamas.

This is where, no matter where I go,
my bed is here and none is better than my own.

When I think about you,
you can never be him...
When once upon a time ago, I never thought there WAS
a him
that could ever be you.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“Every ending is always a beginning.
Without endings, there would be no beginnings.
I don't know about you,
but you can't begin to live without knowing how to end...
well.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“A good writer
never tells your secrets,
they tell their own.

They sacrifice themselves
and surrender you.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“It's all a conundrum, isn't it—
forgetting the mixed tape in the car...
feeling forgotten when...
so many people are thinking of us?
Drinking when we should be eating...
sleeping when we should be making love...
thanking God above when we don't have enough?

Each day is a mad rush to something irrelevant.
We measure our pricelessness by our successes, which...
still equals money.

Life goes by so quick when each day is a mad rush to slow motion.

We eat fast food so that we can go to bed on time,
but, trust me, everyone wakes up too late.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“He helped me clean out my head
in time for floweret sunshine,
while I raked dead leaves from
underneath the bed of my nails
that were waiting to be organized in diaries.
As the 'Forbidding Numb' piled up,
he laundered my abandoned hope clean.
All that I could smell on my hands were
the roots of the root words I had diluted with
extra letters and slushiness.

There isn't a corner that we missed;
and, in no time at all,
I will forget the wretchedness of this winter.

Soon, I will only smell peonies and calla lilies,
fresh cotton sheets, and maybe—just maybe—
the paperless books that I have written
being pressed like petals;
yet, no longer incinerators burning
perished wood that already
pushed up daisies
right when autumn left its leaves
behind me.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“I forgot my key.
The question is:
who do I call now?

Landlords and locksmiths have become more loyal
than you
when you're the only other person that I gave a copy to
in these places that I can only seem to rent.”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream

“We don't have a choice of whom we fall in love with.
We don't have a choice of whom we fall out of love with.
We only have a choice to stay or leave—
it's a set menu at a fixed price.

But, what if we don't like either of our options?”
― Heather Angelika Dooley, Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream