I woke up sobbing because God, in the form of my girlfriend, helped rest the pistol in my mouth and the last thing I heard was his laugh echoed over hers when she helped pull the trigger.… more
I woke up sobbing because God, in the form of my girlfriend, helped rest the pistol in my mouth and the last thing I heard was his laugh echoed over hers when she helped pull the trigger.… more
I am no longer a child and know these efforts won’t atone for the sins of a father, transform a stranger into a mother, yet I keep going as if at some point I will be rewarded, handed whatever it is I seem to want from one of my almost-mothers.… more
It’s not always clear what a hole is for.… more
I say we can burn some incense, scatter something on water, bang a drum, make an incantation, what in your opinion will be an act that is life affirming? You say I think there’s a Harley-Davidson dealership around here.… more
Red is alarm, a fire, emergency, impending disaster. Red is blood, a jagged wound, the color of searing pain. Red is fury, volatility, a tantrum, the angry man who says you’re not enough or maybe you’re too much.… more
I used to think toughness was armor. Now I think it’s trust—running straight at the world believing it might love you back.… more
People want to be sportsmen because sportsmen are rich. People want to be artists because of money as well. If binmen became millionaires everyone would want to be a binman.… more
Dead men, dead rats, dead trees out on the ridge. As I ran, I shouted at God, gods, any goddamned god who’d made the world we lived in at that moment. Dead mothers, children with napalm-sizzled skin. I screamed fuck at God.… more
The fact he wants to tell these stories tells me he wants to keep on breathing. He hasn’t given up yet. And when he sits outside on the bench and smokes, I see him staring off at the sky, his right arm gripping the wheel, turning down a back road, big wheels kicking up a hurricane of mud.
… more
Of all of the food and treats Kelso had eaten in his nearly thirteen years, the one thing we had never given him was chocolate, but on this, his final day, he partook. He loved it, of course. It’s fucking chocolate.… more