"I wanted very much to have it with me for the rest of my life, but in the end I threw it, and threw it hard.”

"what have you done? what have you failed to do?”

"we’re gonna rape this whole goddamned landscape. we’re gonna rape it."

"anywhere. everywhere. nowhere."

"the law! ha! the law! what law? WHERE'S THE LAW?”

"you're gonna do some praying for me, boy. and you better pray good.”

"'God,' I said. 'Do something for us.'"

"it was strange to be a murderer, especially sitting where I was sitting, but I was too tired to be worried, and didn't worry."

"there must be some way for me to get used to the idea that I had buried three men in two days."

"what in this world happened to you, man? what in this world?"

"he not only felt good to me, but he felt like a good person, and I needed one bad; just that contact was what I needed most. I didn't need myself anymore; I had had too much of that for too long."

"I didn't need myself anymore; I had had too much of that for too long."

"it was over. I lay awake all night in brilliant sleep.”

"it's hard to think with a head full of rain."

"they have nailed me to the cross oak and when I walk I drag it behind me."

"I am the electric messiah, the descender, locked away in this dark room, in this dark century."

"they have maimed and imprisoned the divine king. is it any wonder the world sickens and dies?"

"is it any wonder the world sickens and dies?"

"part man. part woman. electricity enflames my brain. voltage. current."

"the fire of heaven; look here.”

"gift of my body. divine. fertile. it shall transform the dry lands of africa into the perfumed orchards of paradise and men will worship me anew."

"in dreams I walk with you."

"not born– shit into existence."

"tumor abortion baby ; sick excretion."

"mommy. mommy. I'm not an animal. an animal."

"the realm of the skin is my delight. a country of pestilence. garden of disease. sweating poison tears of pus."

"I only want to touch you. hold me in your arms and tell me everything's ok."

"but I rise from the plague ; pit-spectre of filth."

"THE FATHER. THE SIN. AND THE WHOLLY GROSS."

"the father, the sin, and the wholly gross.”

"I don't know how many times I have to say this. I am sane. I am perfectly and completely sane."

"sometimes it's only madness that makes us what we are."

"the moon is so beautiful. it's a big silver dollar, flipped by god. and it landed scarred side up, see? so he made the world."

"some say god is an insect. I believe god is in man."

"dirt everywhere! christ, look at it. dirt! dirt!"

"LET THE FEAST OF FOOLS BEGIN."

"I want him to know what it's like to have sticky fingers pick through the dirty corners of his mind."

"is this what it all comes down to-- all our dreams, and hopes, and aspirations? nothing but vomit?"

"oh god, I'm afraid. I'm so afraid. I think I may be ill."

"there is ozone and the smell of burned skin in my nostrils. but I feel nothing."

"the house is an organism hungry for madness. it is the maze that dreams. and I am lost."

"we were one. god. I loved you."

"then I was torn from you, forced into this naked existence, so alone and cold. I never thought I'd feel that love again."

"my true mother is part of me. I can feel her sliding wet in my throat. filling my lungs and my stomach, wrapping her fingers inside so warm, so warm--"

"her teeth glitter like the stars. god. she is impossibly beautiful. she loves me more than you ever could."

"outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance. inwardly: alone."

"and we passed through the cavern of rats. and we passed through the path of boiling steam. and we passed through the country of the blind. and we passed through the slough of despond. and we passed through the vale of tears."

"he touched me in every way I had ever been touched, and devised new ways, at his leisure, there inside my mind."

"surrounded by madness, surrounded by hunger, surrounded by everything but death."

"he withdrew, murmuring to hell with you. and added, brightly, but then you're there, aren't you."

"he dried up the snow. he brought the night. he roared and sent locusts."

"it didn't do a thing; they stayed dead."

"God said: GOD MADE YOU. GOD DOES NOT CARE IF YOU ARE 'GUILTY' OR NOT. I said: I CARE IF I AM GUILTY! I CARE IF I AM GUILTY! God was silent. Everything was SILENT.”

"how dare being give him this body. held up to a mirror, he writhed."

"whether you come as a lover or an executioner, I am ready to receive you."

"but to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else."

"the terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child."

"she said I'm going to die a most painful death. I'm afraid. I'm afraid it's going to come true."

"I'm trying to enjoy my date, and he brings up a fucking dead person."

"what kinda girl would be attracted to a gloomy guy like you?"

"most people are sheep and sheep don't eat meat."

"because hate hangs on and is all you had."

"that's all history is, after all: scar tissue."

"there was a living to be made from manufacturing the authentic."

"the man secretes such an intimate cognition of righteousness that one would swear he sees an archangel in the glass when he shaves."

"things happen to you they happen. they don't ask first. they don't require your permission."

"in the end, it's never what you worry about that gets you."

"as the French would say: who doesn't like getting their butt sucked?"

"the air will always be too filled with something. your body too sore or tired. your father too drunk. your wife too cold. you will always have some excuse not to live your life."

"the ship's sunk, with hundreds dead. film at eleven."

"we all want to be the one standing farthest back. the one who gets to say what's good or bad. right or wrong."

"that's the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell."

"really, there is no wrong. not in our own minds. our own reality. you can never set off to do the wrong thing. you can never say the wrong thing. in your own mind, you are always right."

"they claim their labours are to build a heaven yet their heaven is populated with horrors."

"perhaps the world is not made. perhaps nothing is made. a clock without a craftsman."

"it's too late. always has been, always will be. too late."

"I am tired of earth. these people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."

"after all, what exactly is a family, if not a brotherhood and sisterhood afflicted with the same terminal disease?"

"I caught my reflection in the paneled mirror at the end of the dressing room’s corridor, and I do a double take because the girl I see standing there cannot possibly be me. she’s smiling. she doesn’t hide her lips behind trembling fingers as if her mouth were an untreated wound."

"and that’s when I noticed that when you change, the people around you start to change as well."

"and that’s when I noticed that when you change, the people around you start to change as well. the arched eyebrows. the voices thinning to mere whispers. the spines straightening, faces blanching, as if I were brandishing a small weapon when I passed them."

"I found myself stretching out, as if pleased to show her how wicked I can be – as if I were that very same carnivorous plant they thought of me, the very same monster they had already named me."

"we're all capable of change. sometimes it hurts."

"you know what I feel like? I feel like a new constellation, scabbed in glittering black. a smear across the universe."

"I feel like some shapeless cosmic belt, as if the hand of some invisible deity were cradling me in his arms."

"I want somebody I can take care of – in every possible way. somebody who answers only to me, as if I were the hand of God that feeds them."

"I have another task for you. something that will undoubtedly make you uncomfortable. then again, aren’t those the moments when we change the most – when we’re uncomfortable?"

"it’s not that I feel empty. I think all of us feel empty most of the time and we merely pretend to fill the vacuum with laughter, crying, apologies – anything to make us feel human.",

"I spent so many years forgetting I had teeth, too."

"it’s because the planet is a carnivore and just wants to be fed. people want that as well. people like to eat other people. I spent so many years forgetting I had teeth, too."

"there’s something Godlike about holding something so small – something that solely depends on your kindness, your generosity. I had never thought about hurting something before. until now."

"I never thought I would ever do something as monstrous, as wicked as this."

"that poor creature didn’t deserve to die, and I did it just to please you. what else will I do to make you happy?"

"what else will I do to make you happy? what else will I do before you finally take my eyes from me, as you’ve been promising?"

"if we stay together, we’ll only hurt one another."

"I don’t know about you but hearing about the terrible things other people have done have always made me feel better about the things I’ve done."

"when I was little, I thought if people hurt you, it meant that they loved you."

"I only do this because there are people out there who will do far worse to you."

"everything I’ve asked of you, I’ve made you do – it’s been from a place of love."

"I once dreamt about killing you."

"it was something that came to me over time, slowly crawling around inside my head like a beetle – circling some invisible drain fixed inside there and making its way down into the sludge where memories collect."

"a desperate effort to keep you alive any way possible. keep you permanently living in your agony."

"I think to myself, 'if I were an ice pick, I’d scramble your brain like a plate of eggs.' I think to myself, 'if I were a black hole, I’d swallow you and shit you out in tiny pieces.' I think to myself, 'if I were a tomahawk, I’d split you right down the middle like a rotten piece of fruit.'"

"I’d do anything I could to erase you – smear you against the world the way a boot wipes off a squished worm on a scraper."

"and you mouth the words to me – 'kill me,' you say. over and over again. 'kill me.' 'KILL ME.'"

"a child is an infection. like a parasite."

"you have to become infected. become infected with a parasite and carry the creature as if it were your child."

"I remember how when I was little, I thought exquisitely wrapped slices of meat resembled something too graceful to eat, as if it were the organ of an angel – the innards of some divine being far too consecrated to consume."

"even a carcass can carry life, so why not me?"

"I wonder to myself, 'does it matter? does any of this really matter?' the answer’s no. the answer’s always been no."

"are you happy, my love? please tell me you are."

"for the first time I’m thinking of someone other than myself. it scares me. but letting something happen to you scares me even more."

"I can’t take ownership of your destruction. I want this to stop."

"fuck your second thoughts. fuck your honesty. I don’t need your honesty. I need your love, and I foolishly thought it was mine all this time."

"I’m not some car battery you use for a couple thousand miles and then send off to the junkyard, you fucking cunt."

"I think I did once love you. I think I could have loved you. but not like this. never like this."

"I don’t know if I can bear it anymore. I feel like taking a pair of shears and slicing myself open. would you come then? would that get your attention?"

"I'd stand naked in the center of the floor for hours, dreaming of her and feeling the house rocking and resonating up through my bare feet into my bones."

"as if my body were a hollow bell, tuned and vibrating in perfect sympathy with the frequencies that coursed through the world outside."

"my blood hummed with pleasure. she was singing through me, calling out to me over the distance from her cell, forgiving me my secrets and washing my mind clean."

"but the air inside my house smelled foul, like the inside of my body."

"stinking and rotting and feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't be near her."

"I never went outside anymore, except to buy alcohol and meat."

"planting her flesh inside my stomach so she could grow inside me and live through me, like a cancer."

"I'd get drunk, loosening my attach­ment to myself, and I'd eat the meat raw."

"when they sentenced her to that place, my own life started to drain out of my body immediately."

"I felt the light shooting  straight through my eyes into my skull unfiltered, causing a tumor to grow in the center of my brain. the tumor was shaped like a rose and its petals were as sharp as razorblades."

"with each new thought, a petal would spiral away from the body of the flower and slice a passageway through the meat of my brain, slowly boring out large sections of my identity."

"I watched the blank screen of the television reflect the glow of my cigarette and imagined the hovering red ember was me, and I lived in the arid world of tubes and electronics behind the glass."

"I felt like I'd always felt when she was near me, like a cringing, one-dimensional cut-out figure - a second-hand shadow peeled up from the outline she cast on the world."

"I smelled something decomposing be­neath her robe, like the smell of my own trapped insides."

"when she pulled away from her kiss, a silver thread of her spit connected us, strung like a fragile translucent nerve between our skins."

"but no one would look at us. the world beyond the freeway was invisible."

"the hollowed husks of the bodies that I'd shed hung from hooks secured in the joists of the ceiling, dripping down in rows through­out the house, melting in the trapped heat and dark­ness and saturating the air with their rotting, like lilies wilting in a suppurating garden."

"her flesh grew up out of the offal and blood iridescent, like a night flower straining towards the moon."

"she danced nude among the entrails and garbage and beer bottles as if she were wading joyously through a foaming red sea."

"the scent of her insides seeped out from beneath her skin into the closed air of the room, gradually augmenting and replacing the smell of my misery."

"we nailed the doors of our house closed from the inside. she lives on the meat and blood growing everywhere around us."

"the sun filters through the closed curtains like urine."

"soon I'll be emptied — a dead shell of loose skin, like the others."

"lodged in the bowels of the world as it screams."

"he blankly imagined he was being led down into hell, a place where the darkness would fill his greedy lungs with a thick river of ebony scum."

"immersed in the narcotic hallucinations that grew in the buried absolute-absence-of-light in their tunnel beneath the city."

"as the sun traveled behind the ceiling of smoke and tarnished clouds, the shadows projected on the underside be­came the drugged anthropomorphisms and appari­tions of their chemical dreams."

"THE DRUGGED ANTHROPOMORPHISMS AND APPARITIONS OF THEIR CHEMICAL DREAMS."

"sipping the sweat from her navel like absinthe."

"I lay twisted and naked on the bare stained mattress in the center of the floor."

"inside the sealed container of my skull, my brain lay soaking in a stagnant solution of urine and ammo­nia."

"in my delirium, I'd thought her sweat was flavored, as if her body were fueled with candy, draining sugary clear syrup from her pores as we undulated and invaded each other on the raw altar of the mattress."

"I'd licked her skin for the taste like a naked, groveling cretin at a salt-lick."

"my memories don't belong to me. they're as  unknowable as a centipede fluttering its legs in the dark corner beneath the sink."

"when an image moves through my nervous system, it's with the predatory greed of an intruder."

"my body's laid open, transpar­ent, defenseless."

"each second of time is an individual insect feeding on my blood."

"memories move through the clotted and rotting for­est inside my head and crush the present beneath them."

"I fell into her body and wore her skin like a rubber sheath."

"she protected me from the outside."

"because she's dead now, I'm certain to be eaten soon."

"I'm a skinless body, my muscles drying in the sun. I feel myself shrinking."

"I used her as a process, a system through which we could blend with matter beyond our selfish thoughts."

"I love her more than I need my own identity."

"when her hand stroked my leg, when her mouth wet my skin, the arousal I experienced was the first wave of a current which would ultimately erase us both."

"though her body lies here on the table before me, I don't need to open my eyes to see it in detail, to feel it physically saturate my senses."

"In loving her, I lose the will to live."

"if I eat her body now, I'll take her back into myself. but with each mouthful I swallow, I'll remove a commensurate amount of myself."

"I can see my soul hovering there in front of me in the flood of light and color, above the dull matter of my body. it's an animate cloud, a swarm of demon insects, bad breath made visible."

"by day my body withers away, but by night my mind explores forbidden worlds of power and knowledge, guided by beings of pure darkness."

"the air, being blood, is hard to inhale, but I learn. I relax and let it in. my body floats through it, subsumed by it.",

"I breathe, swallow, and think blood. my imagination stops where blood ends."

"blood sur­rounds me, drowns my sight, so that when I think, before an image forms, it's consumed by blood."

"I'm withered, ancient, a child drifting through a thick red universe, pulsing and gorging myself on my own sentient blood."

"this blood knows me, licks me, keeps me in a perpetual drone of self-negating orgasm that sends waves of pleasure through the furthest pools of pumping red consciousness."

"I can't stop my urge to disintegrate. my skin is pulling apart."

"my sperm is thickened light. it contains false memories, the seed of a new race, a civilization, a plague, a flood of poison oil and dead subaquatic blind monsters."

"sucked into this hole, I regress backwards into a single molecule of agony."

"I was born with the taste of my mother's blood in my mouth."

"he threaded his way through the maze of stalled and fuming cars like mercury pulled through a crack, a hypnotized vulture drawn unconsciously forward by the scent of decay."

"he looked exactly like what he was - a young man whose body was undergoing an extended torture at the hands of its addiction to methamphetamine-sulfate, who hadn't slept in five days and whose bones were like worms beneath his skin."

"he looked exactly like what he was - a young man whose body was undergoing an extended torture at the hands of its addiction."

"her voice followed him like a haunting gnat and burrowed in his ear, whispering with desire."

"your body's private. your body's sacred. you should be violated."

"I want them to do this to you, bastard."

"don't fight back: I need you."

"your body's private. it should be violated by someone weaker than you."

"you should kneel."

"people like you can't be trusted. you should be forced to kneel."

"you should know what it means before you play with pain."

"people like you should be used by scum."

"people like you should be fucked like animals."

"people like you should be humiliated."

"people like you should suck when they're told to suck."

"people like you should be used by scum. people like you should be fucked like animals. people like you should be humiliated. people like you should suck when they're told to suck. people like you should be forced to kneel."

"you should be forced to say thank you for being degraded. you should be forced to say thank you for being a dog. say thank you. say thank you."

"I don't feel myself when you feel me."

"hold your hands over my eyes. I'll hide in your world."

"I don't feel myself when you hold me down."

"his humiliation. rubbing his face in the shit."

"I'm stronger than him, than the rest of them."

"he's an extension of my imagination-- I can play with him like a child plays with its daydreams."

"he's mine to play with, mine to use, mine to discard when I'm finished with him."

"his self hatred so thick in his throat he's choking on it."

"he doesn't belong to himself. he's watching his boundaries dissolve as I control him."

"I press my tongue out onto the floor for guidance. I can taste where your feet have been."

"I concentrate on one thought, eliminating everything else from my mind: you."

"where have I been? I don't remember. I'm voided, an ambling corpse."

"I devour the residue of my own and other people's misery, but it's not nourishment."

"I hate my body. I use it as a device to conceal my hatred, which is my true core."

"but behind my mind, behind a curtain I open only to myself is where I really live, where I plan revenge."

"when your hand's in my mouth I'll force it down in me."

"hold it in. take it out on me."

"I like the way that feels. I like the way that burns me. I like the way that cuts me. I like the way that holds me down."

"our body's breathing. our blood is moving. it's all right. we're in heaven. this is heaven."

"money's flesh. money is flesh in your hand."

"I should have hurt you, but I couldn't hurt you, so I let you hurt me, because I need you."

"put your knife in me. I love you. I'm worthless. I love you."

"cry. cry. open your mouth."

"open your mouth. this feels good. here is your money. this is love."

"holy money, holy love."

"I've wasted myself. I've turned myself into something I can't control."

"I'm sticking my fingers in the blades of the scissors and squeezing as hard as I can. they're dull. they won't cut into me. it doesn't hurt. it throbs, reminding me of the existence of my hand, which disgusts me."

"I hate my body more than I hate the objects and experiences that rub against it. I don't despise the conditions of my life as much as I despise the existence of my flesh."

"I don't despise the conditions of my life as much as I despise the existence of my flesh."

"I'm afraid of recognizing myself."

"the walls reflect me. they know me, think for me, remember me."

"I'm afraid of recognizing myself. the walls reflect me. they know me, think for me, remember me. I know myself, so I despise myself."

"I know myself, so I despise myself."

"I'll commit murder. I'm capable of a premeditated act of cruelty, torture, just to see what it's like, just to see what I become."

"the world's an immediate extension of my thoughts, my self-hatred. I cut myself off."

"they're in the room at the end of the hallway, feeding on each other, sucking, sweating into each other's mouths, penetrating. they're larvae. they are undulating worms. they're monsters."

"I'm insane. I'm inverting myself. I'm twisting like mud between my fingers. I'm malleable, shaped, soft."

"their bed is a huge altar, built of stone."

"it's still the face I loathe, the face I've never been able to accept as my own, the face I've always wanted to rip away, to live the rest of my life as a glare of exposed muscles, nerve endings, veins. but my face is implacable, unchanging, perfectly handsome, unmarred."

"I'll do anything you want. I've been cut down to size. I can't move my fingers. your hand's in my mouth. I'm able to glean what you're thinking by the taste of your hand."

"your eyes are holes. I can see into your mind. the vague, half-formed lurid images I see in there revolt me."

"I'm sickened by my knowledge of your existence, by the fact that you're real, that you're not an extension of my imagination."

"nothing comes to mind when I try to conjure up your face. but you occupy me as if I were an empty receptable made to contain you."

"my mouth leads to the interior of my body - a caldron of disease, germs, and perversions of biology."

"I don't exist individually. I'm made of millions of living creatures, eating each other, decomposing, eating each other."

"my mouth leads to the interior of my body - a caldron of disease, germs, and perversions of biology. I don't exist individually. I'm made of millions of       living creatures, eating each other, decomposing, eating each other."

"I am ripper, tearer, slasher, gouger. I am the teeth in the darkness, the talons in the night. mine is strength, and lust, and power."

"their eyes wide open and pleading: no don't, please don't hurt me, but at the same time saying, yes, do it to me, do it to me doittome- use me, hurt me, abuse me. do whatever you want with me."

"there was no sense of guilt or sorrow in his face over what he had witnessed, no sense of horror at watching other human beings being tortured and abused, thrown away like trash."

"eighteen or so snuff films. eighteen or so bodies. used and discarded like trash."

"when I don the mask and wield the knife, I feel like a god."

"you try anything, he'll gut you faster than a rat can shit."

"mmm. tastes good. never tried ripping a chick's nose off with my teeth before."

"he... that thing... is beyond human. it's something horrible and incomprehensible. a creature from the very depths of the pit..."

"if someone can't live their life the way they please, they might as well die."

"you humans are nothing more than food. nothing but morsels to fill our stomachs."

"if you're always worried about crushing the ants beneath you... you won't be able to walk."

"ambition comes with a price attached. of course, that price comes too high if you die for nothing."

"the reward for ambition too great is self destruction."

"still squirming around in your pitiful existence, I see."

"you're nothing but a squirming, sacrificial offering."

"at that time, he shone before me as something beautiful, noble, and larger than life."

"what is my place in this world? who am I? what am I capable of? what am I destined for?"

"we are all at the mercy of a great tide. fate, or whatever you wish to call it."

"martyrdom for a merciless god. what a waste."

"and we all disappear in the end. our lives spent. never even knowing who we were."

"it's enormous. an endless swirl of consciousness. as if all the evil in the world were gathered here."

"before long, you won't even be able to preserve any final remnants of your individual self. like a drop of water, you'll simply dissolve, becoming no more than another swell in an ocean of dark souls."

"so cold. all my blood is flowing out of my body. is this the end for me? to die as some carved up monster, wretched and horrible?"

"deep fear will stay and spread if it can. you can’t outrun or outsmart or subdue it. untreated, it will only fester. fea`r is a rash."

"when he wakes, his body is covered in a film of sweat because he knows that what awaits is another day of slaughtering humans."

"teaching to kill is worse than killing."

"he wishes he could anesthetize himself and live without feeling anything. act automatically, observe, breathe, and nothing more. see everything, understand, and not talk. but the memories are there, they remain with him."

"today I'm the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle."

"I don't get why a person's smile is considered attractive. when someone smiles, they're showing their skeleton."

"there's something admirable in her artificial indifference. there's something about her he'd like to break."

"the craving for meat is dangerous."

"but the pain, he intuits, is the only thing that keeps him breathing. without the sadness, he has nothing left."

"because hatred gives one strength to go on; it maintains the fragile structure, it weaves the threads together so that emptiness doesn't take over everything."

"he tried to hate God, but he doesn't believe in God. he tried to hate all of humanity for being so fragile and ephemeral, but he couldn't keep it up because hating everyone is the same as hating no one."

"the sky is made of glass, glass that's opaque and solid. the moon seems a strange god."

"there's nothing worse than not being able to see yourself."

"would she be able to sense the blood that had washed over his fingers for so many years; would she hear the screams he’d never done a thing about?"

"another time he introduced himself as John Wayne. when the girl had laughed and asked 'like the cowboy?' he had said, 'no, like the killer,' and hit her in the temple with a tire iron before she could run."

"if that house were alive, it would feed on happiness and breathe out nothing but screaming and hate."

"this is your last chance. next time you piss me off, we’re takin’ this same drive, takin’ this same walk, but instead of diggin’ a tiny hole, you’re gonna dig your own grave, and then I’ll kill you."

"'but don’t you got family?” he asked. the question was automatic, the importance of family beaten into his DNA."

"the importance of family beaten into his DNA."

"you know what they say—some people get addicted to feeling bad because whenever they feel good they feel guilty."

"New York is so cramped with dreamers, it’s a wonder they aren’t crawling out of the sewers like rats."

"he yearned to touch her, but the idea of doing it while she was breathing scared him."

 "he yearned to touch her, but the idea of doing it while she was breathing scared him. tt was different when there was potential for humiliation, rejection, disgust."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT PAIN IS."

"and you better hope nothing happens to me. because if I die, you die."

"you gonna do something? or just stand there and bleed?"

"sometimes it’s hard being superior to every single other person on the planet. it’s isolating. gods should not have to feel that kind of pain. because that is what we are. you and me. we’re gods."

"you give and you give… you give your whole fucking life, and what happens? people just tear you down."

"we're gonna cut that part out of you like a cancer. then, my boy, you can finally be who you were always meant to be."

"one more kill. it's the only thing I know how to do."

"a nice glass of warm milk, a little nap, and a total frontal lobotomy."

"I'M DONE BEING EVERYONE'S PRISONER. NOW YOU'RE MY PRISONER, AND I'M NEVER LETTING YOU GO."

"I'M DONE BEING EVERYONE'S PRISONER."

"let's stay on this miserable planet. together."

" I CLEANED YOU. I LET YOU BE LIKE A PERSON."

"I cleaned you. I let you be like a person."

"I GAVE YOU A SECRET PLACE. JUST FOR YOU. A PLACE TO CLEAN YOUR DISGUSTING BODY."

"I gave you a secret place. just for you. a place to clean your disgusting body."

"other animals live in the present. humans cannot, so they invented hope."

"sometimes the thought is closer to the truth, to reality, than an action. you can say anything, you can do anything, but you can't fake a thought."

"once this thought arrives, it stays. it sticks, it lingers, it dominates."

"maybe I've actually known all along. maybe this is how it was always going to end."

"coming home is terrible whether the dogs lick your face or not; whether you have a wife or just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for you."

"you yourself were cut from a different cloudy cloth, returned, remaindered, ill-met by moonlight, unhappy to be back, slack in all the wrong spots, seamy suit of clothes dishrag-ratty, worn."

"you sigh into the onslaught of identical days. one might as well, at a time... well... anyway... you're back."

"the sun goes up and down like a tired whore, the weather immobile like a broken limb while you just keep getting older."

"everything you see now, all of it: bone."

"it's good to remind yourself the world is larger than the inside of your own head."

"it's a uniquely human fantasy that things will get better, born perhaps of the uniquely human understanding that things will not."

"people like to think of themselves as points moving through time, but I think it's probably the opposite."

"it’s not going anywhere. I’ve known this for a while now. maybe it’s human nature to keep going in the face of this knowledge. the alternative requires too much energy. decisiveness."

"there’s just something ineffable. profoundly, unutterably, unfixably wrong here."

"it’s like the rabies virus, attaching itself to our ganglia, changing us into itself."

"I wonder what it must be like to be a sheep. spend one’s entire life in this miserable smelly place doing nothing. eating, shitting, sleeping, over and over."

"goodness is only some kind of reflection upon evil. that's all it is."

"there is nothing in common among women except menstruation."

"we are all the same. different words, different bodies, different versions. like insects. meat."

"no one is good or bad, but if you want, I'm the bad one."

"don't you understand you disgust me now?"

"you believe in god, don't you? that god you try to get to through fucking or dope."

"when I'm away from you, I think of you as a monster or a woman possessed, and then I see you again and all this disappears."

"maybe what you saw was god, and you didn't know it."

"there is nothing to fear except god, whatever that means to you."

"for me, god is a disease."

"I can't exist by myself because I'm afraid of myself, because I'm the maker of my own evil."

"I met a man who loved everything, and he died in a flood of shit."

"I've always wondered what is worse: to take another man's wife, to hurt a child, or to kill."

"when I was a boy my dog crawled out onto the porch to die. before the end it yelped, as if it had seen something real."

"you look ugly. you've hardened. for the first time, you look vulgar to me."

"why the hell would you want to believe the world is about to end?"

"God hasn’t turned his back on you."

"I really think God brought me here for a reason."

"tell me the truth, do you find me disgusting?"

"I understand that you are angry, but you don’t have to be angry at the entire world. you can just be angry at me."

"all this time, you could have been a part of my life."

"who would want me to be a part of their life?"

"I don’t care about you. get that through your fucking skull and die already."

"I don’t believe that anyone can save anyone."

"I need to know that I have done one thing right with my life."

"you still think I'm pretty enough?"

"seems like there's something missing in me that the rest of the world has."

"I hate you so much for leaving me here sometimes I hope you die."

"I just hope things can go back to the way they were before, but I don't see how they could. not after the things I've done."

"I never wanted you to feel jealous. it's an awful feeling like a rot the way it just twists and turns at your insides. I know that aching so well. I feel it whenever I see others whose lives come easy because... the truth is I'm not really a good person."

"I never wanted to be a mother. I loathed the feeling of it growing inside me. felt that sickness. pulling, sucking on me like some needy animal in a barn. how could I be responsible for another life? life terrifies me."

"the lord must have been generous to you. he never answers any of my prayers."

"the lord must have been generous to you. he never answers any of my prayers. I don't know why. what did I do? what is wrong with me?"

"I want what they have so badly. to be perfect. to be loved by as many people as possible to make up for all my time spent suffering."

"sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and a fear washes over me 'cause what if this is it? what if this is right where I belong?"

"I'm a failure. I'm not pretty, or naturally pleasant, or friendly. I'm not smart, or funny, or confident. I'm exactly what mama said I was: weak."

"I'm so scared that when you finally come home you'll see me and be frightened like everyone else is."

"I know what I've done. bad things. terrible, awful, murderous things. I regret them now, but I liked how they felt. I wish I didn't, but I did."

"at first, it was only animals smaller than myself. nothing with feelings, nothing that could hurt me back. felt good. killing's easier than you'd think."

"I hurt them so they too might know what it feels like to suffer."

"she had a hard life. she only wanted a home to feel safe in, I can see that. I thought I hated her, but I just wanted to feel safe too."

"my lord. I made such a mess of things. I don't know how much more I can take. I need to clean this up. all of it."

"I can be who you want me to be. if you'll just stay with me."

"tell me the truth. why are you leaving me? what did you see? why did you change?"

"TELL ME THE TRUTH. WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME? WHAT DID YOU SEE? WHY DID YOU CHANGE?"

"where does all this ungratefulness stem from? how is it that you find our lives so beneath you?"

"I've seen the things you've done - in private - when you believe that no one's watching. you think others won't notice? you can't keep your true self hidden forever."

"I won't suffer for you any longer. if you want to leave, go. but if you fail, and you will fail, I want you to remember what it feels like. because that's how I feel every time I look at you."

"I love the taste of it! the taste of hot freshly killed blood!"

"kill everyone now! condone first degree murder! advocate cannibalism! eat shit!"

"filth are my politics, filth is my life!"

"I haven't been happy one minute of my entire fucking life."

"I used to think that my life was a tragedy. but now I realize, it's a fucking comedy."

"you don't listen, do you? I don't think you ever really hear me. you just ask the same questions every week. 'how's your job?' 'are you having any negative thoughts?' all I have are negative thoughts."

"is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?"

"I just don't want to feel so bad anymore."

"what kind of coward would do something that cold blooded? someone who hides behind a mask."

"I've got nothing left to lose. nothing can hurt me anymore."

 "it looks like people! it looks like different people. sometimes it pretends to be someone that I know. sometimes it’s a random stranger. sometimes it looks like my grandfather who died in front of me when i was seven. but it’s all the same thing. it’s like it wears people’s faces like masks."

"it’s smiling at me. but not a friendly smile. it’s the worst smile i’ve ever seen in my life."

"it’s not a hallucination, no. it’s real. you don’t get it. it does things to me. it causes shit to happen around me. it’s taken over my whole life, and my mind, and it tells me things."

"you’re not listening to me! oh my god. I’m going to fucking die, and no one will listen to me!"

"you're going to die! you're going to die! you're going to die!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"

"it wasn't so much the blood. it was her face. the look that she had."

"you have wounds that have never fully healed. and it is possible they never will completely. that’s the nature of trauma."

"at first, I noticed small changes in him. then it all happened so fast. he was on edge. paranoid. he would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. I’d never heard him scream before."

"my eyes are open now. I have been cursed."

"I came to you, the person I’m supposed to trust most in the world, and I confided that I was scared to death. that I needed you. and you just didn’t even listen to a word I was saying."

"you know what I think you want? nothing. because there's nothing there to satisfy. you are a mock person. you're just a body."

"be strong. you're young. you'll breed well.",

"there's nothing a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no God."

"you bet that you'll be alive tomorrow at 9 o'clock and we bet that you'll be dead. okay?"

"whether by knife or whether by gun, losing your life can sometimes be fun."

"you must admit, you brought this on yourself."

"you think the world revolves around you? because you're beautiful? fucking sow."

"you want me to say it? time destroys everything."

"you know what people say? there are no women who can't come, only men who can't fuck."

"the assailant drew blood. blood calls for revenge."

"vengeance is a human right."

"there's a place where you can take refuge. a place inside you, a place to which no one else has access, a place that no one can destroy."

"I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. I know I breathe."

"the things the love of a madman can do."

"she whispered secrets to me only a dead woman could know."

"night, night, naughty boy."

"if you knew what you had coming, you'd be fucking terrified."

"I'm gonna take my time. I want this to really hurt."

"a man cannot unsee the truth. he cannot willingly return to darkness, or go blind once he has the gift of sight, any more than he can be unborn."

"we are the only species capable of self-reflection. the only species with the toxin of self-doubt written into our genetic code."

"time wasn't right. it was moving too fast. then I was 19. then I was 20. I felt like one of those dolls asleep in the supermarket."

"it's not real if I don't think about it."

"I know it's scary. that's part of it."

"it feels like someone took a shovel and dug out all my insides. and I know there's nothing in there, but I'm still too nervous to open myself up and check. I know there's something wrong with me."

"darker, darker, yet darker."

"he knew the forest well, moving as if he evolved into it, stalking his prey as by primal instinct."

"do you think I was loved...?"

"...love? you sure say stupid things."

"but I love you, mother. so please... let me be by your side forever."

"it reeks of blood. pain. insanity."

"the stench of blood. of vomit. the smell of rotten flesh."

"I rise from the cold floor, consumed by despair."

"she's horrifying. eyes filled with rage, lips red with blood, and hair that's thick and matted with the sweat of others."

"my nightmares are getting worse."

"I have to finish what I started."

"what I am about to do has not been approved by the vatican."

"I have the body of a pig."

"corruption, thou art my father."

"when they see what you did to me, they'll kill you."

"WHEN THEY SEE WHAT YOU DID TO ME, THEY'LL KILL YOU."

"reveal thy name to me, demon."

"you shall drink the wrath of the Almighty."

"it is hard to describe the look on her face. it was not the kind of look a child gives you."

"I will lure them into the woods. then I will show them my power."

"I keep having the same nightmare where I'm standing outside the church looking out into the fields. I can see people looking back at me through the rows of corn. their bodies are painted red."

"I curse you forever in name, I bless you forever in death."

"now shall your name be erased under the heavens."

"NOW SHALL YOUR NAME BE ERASED UNDER THE HEAVENS."

"make my chest hurt with regret. forge your punishment and nail it deep."

"it is not the sun rising, but our sins."

"whether for its punishment, or its forgiveness."

"amongst prayers it might silently come creeping to us one day."

"who are we pilgrims, if not sinners who have chosen wandering as the gentlest of penances?"

"I'm still inside the creature. I can hear its roar outside, I can hear the thunderous beating of its heart."

"I was a prisoner trapped inside a rooted body. a body immersed in constant anger. in constant pain."

"I am awake in a sleeping body."

"then I woke up, but I was no longer myself."

"in dreams I hear him speak to me, even though his words have no sound. in dreams I can see him watch me, even though his eyes are made of silver."

"we must return. I saw the shadow, I saw the gold under the black waters. we must return, the sea trembles when she is close at hand."

"are you tormented by memories? burdened by guilt?"

"you're nicely hollowed, aren't you?"

"so what say you to a spot of murder on my behalf? if you don't, I'll leave this place and take more lives. many more."

"I'm only using what the gods gave me."

"I'm only using what the gods gave me. how can that be so wrong?"

"how is it that you go about defining good and evil?"

"I want you to kill one more."

"while I was trapped in here, he touched me, that maniac, like I was some rare specimen."

"once she is dead, I will have no regrets."

"I will sit here, and watch the world turn."

"don't come near me. nothing good will come of it."

"I haven't said anything strange, have I?"

"do not attempt to help me. just let me sit here and wither quietly away."

"am I figureed out? is this is all I'll ever be?"

"I'm just working on my life being a place I don't have to fucking escape."

"may we never go to hell but always be on our way."

"street by street. block by block. taking it all back."

"the youth immersed in poison. turn the tide, counterattack."

"violence against violence ; let the roundups begin."

"no mercy. no exceptions. a declaration of all out war."

"I'd hate to see you hurt but how else will I ever get through to you?"

"just relax, struggling will only give you rope burn."

"dig it up. that's all it wants."

"I got a box cutter with your name on it."

"I don't know you, but would I fall in love with you?"

"a shot in the heart doesn't make it unbreak."

"they're not a bad kid, but they had to do it."

"I'm the kind of human wreckage that you love."

"if you call off the guns, I'll call off the dogs."

"the things I see go unnoticed by some but fill my eyes with horror."

"I am a disposable being who will fuck all life. I multiply and the air gets thinner and dirty. I take up space, I smell, I consume but I produce nothing. I abuse. I have no reason to exist."

"YOU DON'T CARE. YOU DON'T LOVE ME. I ONLY LOVE MYSELF."

"no one will love me like I love me."

"NO ONE WILL LOVE ME LIKE I LOVE ME."

"I'm gonna dig this hole until I fall in. until there is no end. until there is no anything."

"CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF SUFFERING."

"I let it in and it took everything."

"god the animal."

"death is the martyr of beauty."

"self-inflicted mental terror."

"none of our best friends ever existed."

"I fucking hate how I want to control her."

"and they hated me. and they hated me. and they hated me. and they hated me. but then they ate me, and then they ate me, and they thought I was tasty."

"every knife in the house is mine, carving on the legs makes 'em fine."

"show me that you love me and that we belong together."

"this place is nowhere after all."

"as I seep into the blackest void of all, I'm nothing, I am no one."

"don't you ever take your life out of mine, I'll fuckin' kill you."

"baptized in bloody water ; I'll make you famous one way or another."

"I'll show you what it means to be king of this goddamn city."

"don't struggle like that or I will only love you more."