shoplifting in a ghost town

"i hate purity. i hate goodness. i dont want any virtue to exist anywhere. i want to be corrupt to the bones"

Let's pretend we're artists and everything we feel is something new to be proud of. Let's take our imaginary friends on a double date and ditch them in a movie and hope they get along while we kiss outside on the sidewalk

I honestly couldn't care less if you like the same bands or you've read the same books. Tell me one original thing, tell me one true, real thing that brings me to my fucking knees that I've never heard before and I'm yours

Services were held for us at major international airports and the same song was played each time, the one I'd play outside your bedroom window each night if I could

I always thought that I was sick and you were the cure. But everyone gets things backwards sometimes

You'd think it would be easy for them to mark with red the cigarette that killed you so that you wouldn't smoke it, the drink that does you in with a label cautioning you not to, the kiss that ends the world with flashing lights that spell out the words

"Stay Away."

"Did you think I would forget how to love? It's like riding a bike. Everyone falls off and scrapes their knees sometimes"

These things take time to remember. But you weren't always like this. I knew you before

We look at the people who tell the truth, who say real things in public, like they’re confused. Crazy. As if everything should be said safely or not at all and what you feel shouldn’t be taken seriously

Which is why it's not polite to say "I'm going to kiss you now because I can't do anything else"

I was so busy missing you, I missed someone else standing right in front of me. Now I’m missing them instead

No matter how you stack me. No matter how you arrange me. No matter how you look at me. I am still here and I am still the same person made of the same things. I regret nothing

These are all the tears you’ve ever shed. The ones that taught you who you are. That made you grow up. That let you know that what you felt, mattered. And they are all here for a reason

And if you can't say yes, answer anyway. Because I'd rather live with the answer than die with the question

As you drift further into the past, my memory of you fractures and splinters until all I can clearly remember is not a picture but a feeling

You can be in love and you can be in a relationship. But remember, they're not the same thing

You taught and turned me into what I am with fire and steel and hurt and hate because that's what happened to you. But I will teach and turn with love and kindness. I will kill your spiral

Forget about your lists and do what you can because that's all you can do. Phone up the people you miss and tell them you love them. Hug those close to you as hard as you can. Because you are always only a drunk driver's stupidity, a nervous shopkeeper's mistake, a doctor's best attempts and an old age away from forever

You think you’re waiting for help. For someone to tell you what the right thing to do is. Even though, at the back of your mind, you already know what that is. So all you’re really waiting for, is a time when you’re forced to do it.

Just like you mistook lust for love, you have mistaken being alone with loneliness. So I'm fine. Thank you for asking

With my freckles and messy hair, bruised knee and chapped lips - this morning I am splendidly imperfect and alive

Yet, no matter how accurately you write it or mumble it under your breath, it won't change the way things stand between you. A poem, let alone a paragraph, is not a magic spell. And the only people who can write those stay in padded rooms, listening to music no one's ever played

I burnt my tongue on you. Now I've lost all sense of taste. Or decency

A nonsmoker is forced to find food, but for a smoker breakfast can be a cigarette and a cup of bad coffee

I thought I couldn't afford to take her out and smoke as well. So I gave up cigarettes. Then I took her out and one day I looked at her and thought: "Oh well," and I went back to smoking again, and that was better.

"All the thoughts that I push out of my head until I lay it down on a pillow
are rushing towards me, running, leaping over the coffee table

i throw my novel at the fern that rests above the television, un-used,
no one turns it on anymore. staring at the black screen, my mind dances
but the lack of expression on my face says different" -aimee gratton

You buy things and you keep them clean. You take care of them. Keep them in a special pocket. Away from keys and coins. Away from other things that should be kept clean and taken care of as well. Then they get scratched. And scratched again. And again. And again. And again. Soon, you don't care about them anymore. You don't keep them in a special pocket. You throw them in the bag with everything else. They've surpassed their form and become nothing but function. People are like that. You meet them and keep them clean. In a special pocket. And then you start to scratch them. Not on purpose. Sometimes you just drop them by accident or forget which pocket they're in. But after the first scratch, it's all downhill from there. You see past their form. They become function. They are a purpose. Only their essence remains

"I have these dreams, filled with the melodic singles of rock bands, blank pages and words pouring out of plants, rabbits in top hats singing lullabies to lost love, golden dragons circling the grave of their mother, roaring fire and flame in defiance of death, barristers and black knights doing battle in city streets, trains to hell and elevators to heaven, somewhere in an ocean of skin, somewhere in a sky filled with sin (bring them all to bear)

And though you might not have witnessed them, I believe it all to be as real as anything else I've ever seen"

You told me it'd be ok. But you were the one crying

You told me to let go. But you were the one holding onto my shirt