we're all of us haunted and haunting.

love, it isn't safe. you give it a knife and watch it maim.
love, it isn't free you can buy it off.

- give it a knife, paul michel

[papertissue]

we dream down a world -

- an urban wasteland:
a fiberglass shell,
steel, some plastic.
we are living better:
tangled wires hanging
naked; walking, talking.
we live in rooms that
smell of strangers.

call them home.

loneliness is the human condition. cultivate it. the way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow.
never expect to outgrow loneliness. never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space.
an intelligent sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception.
if you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment.

- janet fitch, white oleander