You can hold a secret, hold it so far in that it drives nearly every thought and every move you make- your very heartbeat, almost.
Because that’s how it works after something terrible has happened. You know this is true if something terrible has ever happened to you. A thousand objects take on new meaning. Everything is a reminder of something else.
Supposedly there’s an actual, researched link between extreme creativity and mental illness, and I believe it because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Blessed books – they’re a place to be alone, and no one else can come in.
We had lain together, skin on skin, been as close as two people could, and he was a stranger. He was that someone who you are afraid of as a child, stranger. They never told you that stranger might be someone you knew.
I began to learn the importance of lifting things up and looking underneath.
You could care enough to keep a secret, but you could care enough to tell one, too.
Maybe it was wrong, or maybe impossible, but I wanted the truth to be one thing. One solid thing.
Control was just wishful thinking, and you controlled things to hedge your bets, to be safe, to guard against loss.
Maybe we all just wanted someone to believe in. That’s all each of us wanted, and it should be so simple, but it never was simple.
Being needed was a handy trick. It could fill you up so full you never even noticed all the places that were empty.
Sometimes you build up these walls, you build and you build and you build up these walls and you think they’re so strong, but then someone can come along and tip them over with only his fingers, or the weight of his breath.
I’d always thought telling the truth to other people was hard, but maybe that was a snap compared to telling the truth to yourself. Sometimes we just refused to know what we knew.
Too often in my life, love has been defined as “humiliation with occasional roses”.
But my apology was a thousand apologies.
But what I wanted back had never really been there. He was a temporary illusion, a mirage of water after walking in the desert. I had made him up. And he could have killed me. You’ve got to stop the ride sometimes. Stop it and get off.
You take care of the people you love, but it’s true, too, that you take care of the things you own.
They never told you that stranger might be someone you knew.
What’s that about? Love must be more about power than we think, if even in its most intimate moment of expression we think about not being the one who risks the most.
It’s a simple truth that a secret is something you’re ashamed of.