Quotes, Clips, Phrases and the Meaning of Life

- My, how the hype has ruined our love
- Why is it that we say congratulations when we know our friends are making bad decisions?

- He has to get drunk to get girls, especially the one he loves.
- Why is it that nobody ever says anything, but we all constantly talk about the fact that there’s so much to say?

- We’re not. We’re just getting good at hating each other.
- Do you think any of us are having fun?

- Her entire life is a slew of catered occasions.
- Is it my fault or theirs that the invitations have simply stopped coming?

- Anyway, I wanted to talk about the now.
- Were we as bottled up as the rest of them, or was what we were doing way back when actually something different?

- You just be the educated rebel that you need to be
- Why is it that we try to continually live up to the expectations set by our younger more adventurous selves?

- When it was recalled on the television set we pretended like we ignored the message, then when it broke I suppose we kept it for the fours years after that just to spite them.
- Which one do you like more, because this one is cheaper, not that that matters, but that’s all I’m saying is that this particular model costs less than the other more expensive one.

- She never tells the story anymore, but there was a period of time in her life when it was classy to talk about losing her virginity to an inanimate object.
- Have you heard about her yet? She’s not like all the other girls.

- All of my art projects from first to eighth grade miraculously turned into ashtrays every time my nicotine-addicted grandmother would come over unexpected. I suppose my parents have always been better than me at finding a purpose for my dabbling in assigned and organic creativity.
- Why is it so much easier to remember the things that really don’t matter that much anymore?

- Blank page
- Why aren’t the good ideas coming as often as they did in the past?

- There were drinks, drugs and awkward silences at the stoplights.
- Why is it that telling a friend’s story about a night you weren’t around for is sometimes better than telling your own story? And for some reason or another it especially gets easier when you realize that you’re barely friends with that person anymore?

- I have a lack of motivation to apologize
- Does that make me far from normal or is it the other way around?

- The many subtle loves of my life.
- Do they keep topping each other, or is it more so a matter of falling out of touch, whether the act be self-inflicted or coincidentally a part of the bigger picture?

- I’d say that on any given day it’s not completely ridiculous to think about your own funeral and furthermore who would show up to it, given the time and context. By that same token, it’s also okay to think about the type of speech of you would give if your high school ever asked you back as one of “those people,” and furthermore to look through your yearbook and wonder which of those smiling faces would go to your funeral and vice-versa, and finally, the concept of faking your own death, just to see who cared enough to make an appearance for the food and possibly conversation.
- Have I really lived at all or was everything just something occasionally worth writing down?

- Every time I think about how much a waste of time this is, I end up casually reassuring myself that possibly it’s all a matter of interpretation and misunderstanding.
- Is anybody really listening?

I never asked about her illnesses... that's not really something I ask about. From what I've picked up, she needs new teeth because of her bad gums, she has a heart condition, and something is wrong with her gallbladder. Her right arm has a huge scar on it from a car accident and she is unable to feel with her right pinky and ring finger, and this has prevented her from being able to do pottery like she used to. Apparently she spent a whole year high on vicodin, she tells me she doesn't remember much of that year, and I do believe she was into some pretty hard stuff when she was a young teenager.

tiny symbols of something

The first was in New York City. Two was in the garden. Three, Philadelphia Street. Four was in the Chinese restaurant parking lot.
If you shed one thing, let it be the better parts that cover you and keep you safe. Those are the things someone might dare to pick up. You both have to be really brave.

everytimeithinkimsickiconvincemyselfthatillneverbeabletogetbetterandthatiwouldneverfeelwhatitwasliketobehealthyagain

ten dollars says she won't read this

but it's got to be said: running away to new england never solved anything. new places, new distractions. it's just the easy way out. sorry, but it's true.

Sometimes, instead of people questioning how I feel, I just like hearing them legitimately agree. How long has it been now?

Our parents came down from the mountains
a few hundred miles apart long the Appalachian Trail.
After the war many left there
homes looking for work in the industrial cities of the north.
Some stayed behind. Their grandfathers never made it through
the mountains migrating so they made homes their
and the smartest ones prospered even there.
But our parents saw television and our parents saw that
was not a place they would make a life
and though it hurt them deeply to leave their homes
and though they missed it in their bones
we were forever grateful for their departure.

Our parents have the mountains in them
and our parents learned they were smarter than these city boys
and our parents taught us not to be denied.
They would not be denied
the material things they coveted
and they ran up credit card debts
though they were smarter than these city boys, they had not learned their games.
As children we thought the world was fair and as children
we did not realize how much our birthplaces mattered
and we did not realize what it was to choose
a place to make your home.
Now the time has come for choosing and the valleys are all empty.

Our parents never made it to the cities but their homes in the valleys were wide
and had satellites.
Our parents picked new values
we took as obvious and boring.
We did not appreciate how hard they had worked
and we did not comprehend the self-hatred that accompanied them
or the demons they kept at bay.
We cursed them for losing the games and
like all children assumed they were given what they gave us.
In this simple and evil way we denied their life’s work.

Wandering out of the valley
through the mountains to the city we picked a place to make a home,
we plucked values out of the air and questioned everything.
How can we be grateful for what given to us so freely?
How can we appreciate when they cried and sweated and grit their teeth
and took such punishment and rose again
all so we would know nothing of that suffering.

discovery

i hope you get there sometime

Portrait of a Writer as a Recluse

Portrait of a Writer as a Recluse

By Dennis Thatcher

It’s two o’clock in the morning on a hot summer night in July and I’m sitting across from aspiring writer Christopher S. Bell in the lower-level end of these here United States of America, otherwise known as Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The location is the back booth of a local dive that my assignment claims is a hometown tradition. Coney Island, where the weak and weary go to load up on artery-clogging agents and recover from whatever direction their night is currently spinning in.
For the twenty-two-year-old Bell, such a recovery is beyond necessary, his mouth drunkenly chewing animal product when its not exhaling white clouds of smoke from the cheap cigarettes he consistently buys and smokes. This night alone, the two of us have stopped at four different convenient stores spread throughout Johnstown, searching for what the writer refers to as “The perfect way to kill yourself.”
I try my best to ignore all of my subject’s addictions, as I stare down at the empty white page in my red notepad sitting next to the two gooey hot dogs that Christopher insisted I order. With each loud click of his jaw (Bell rudely chewing with his mouth wide open as if he’s inherited such a privilege from his forefathers) I contemplate why exactly my editor has sent me on yet another wild goose chase. Actually that’s a bit of understatement, considering that I don’t think many wild geese fly over these parts anymore.
The town located in the Western part of the state is infamous for floods and steel production, both of which managed to swallow all the residents and buildings whole in the late 70’s. The inhabitants of Johnstown are an odd mix of upper-middle class hill-dwellers, and those living in the searing underbelly of the town, or on its outskirts clinging to their shotguns and one-sided points of view. We run into one type or the other all night as I follow Bell around on his lackluster search for answers, and more importantly, material.
“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than this in your entire life?” He asks me holding up his fully loaded chilidog a moment away from consumption.
“I can’t say that I have,” I reply sheepishly, before attempting to flip through the night’s notes for a logical starting point.
Such a task seems beyond difficult at that very moment considering every place we’ve already been to, and furthermore the overabundance of exchanges that have occurred between Christopher and what he refers to as “an odd blend of old friends, enemies, acquaintances, masturbatory fantasies, and ones that got away.” I think about all of them in ways I’m not sure I’m supposed to, the distinctive line between reality and fiction instantly blurring the second I stepped into this writer’s quaint little world. I clear my throat and find my footing, only to once again be interrupted.
“And ya know, that’s the thing I think a lot of them have lost a long time ago.”
“What have they lost?” I ask out of curiosity.
“Just everything, ya know? I mean, it’s not like any of them will say they’ve changed. They don’t like to think of themselves as people who look down at me and my chilidog with some sense that I’m weak-willed. They call it evolution now, I think, or maybe a conscious decision to help make the world a better place, but the truth of the matter is that they wish they were like me.”
“How do you figure?” I say without much thought.
“Because assholes like you are following me around, asking me questions.”
I laugh out loud before taking a bite from my own plate, and once again trying to find my bearings. Bell seems comfortable in his own appropriated titled hole, despite his still lingering intoxication. I wonder if such a night is normal for him, or rather if it was all an act for the dim-witted journalist. I try not to steer too far away from either possibility as I lean back in the booth and begin.
So let’s talk about tonight.
- What, are you serious? You’re not gonna ask me about my childhood or something? Start with an icebreaker?
Do you wanna get into any of that stuff right now?
- No, not really. Actually, if at all possible, I’d like to avoid the dirty little tidbits of information you or someone like you has dug up on me.
I was unaware that any such information existed, Christopher.
- You’re right. It probably doesn’t, but in any case, I’m just not sure if I’m ready to talk about tonight just yet. I mean, I don’t think you should be either.
Yeah, maybe you’re right. Okay, well how bout your book?
-I don’t wanna talk about that right now either.
Ya know, you’re not really giving me too much room to breathe here.
- See that’s where I think you’re wrong. I’ve been giving you room to breathe all night, allowing you the time to observe, to take everything in, to make mental notes, like ya know, us writers do, or at least I’m assuming that’s how you roll, and now that we’ve officially come down, allowed ourselves the time to dwell in the past and the future, I’m just kind of hoping we can cut all the bullshit.
So what is it you wanna talk about then?
- I’m not sure. I mean, I could write pages about this chilidog, and books about tonight; all the looks and subtleties having some kind of primordial effect on my mood, but I guess the truth of the matter is that I wanna know what you think of everything?
You want my opinion?
- Yeah, if it’s not too much to ask.
Ya know, journalism is supposed to be a subjective business.
- Yeah, but you don’t seem like the kind of journalist who really gives a shit about form, and ya know, all that other crap. At least that’s what I gathered when you were doing shots with those two sixteen-year-olds a few hours ago.
See, now you’re making me out to be the bad guy. You’re the one who said they were legal.
- Well yeah, but I’m a writer. I mean, how hard is it to figure out that I’m the biggest goddamn liar on the planet at this point?
Not too difficult, I suppose.
- Exactly, and that’s what I’m saying. It’s like the same everywhere, in any profession. I mean, despite the fact that you went to school and attempted to abide by all the rules, you still can’t deny that some things are inescapable.
I’m not sure I know what you’re trying to get at here.
- What I’m trying to say is that despite the fact that you might be coming into this as a professional journalist or whatever you wanna call yourself, you have to stop and realize that not only have I read the magazine you write for, but also I know that if some supposed “subjective” writer wants to make another writer sound like an asshole, then it’s really not too difficult for them to do so.
So what’s your point then?
- My point is, I’ve established the fact that we’re both assholes, now let’s talk about what assholes talk about as opposed to say, interviewer and interviewee.
Okay, what is it assholes talk about?
- Ya see now right there’s the kind of question an asshole would ask.
I’m lost.
- Good, cause I think that means we’re finally getting somewhere.


I pause for a moment and try to put myself on the same page as Bell, who has magically managed to corrupt every one of my original intentions. I start to run back through the events of the night one by one, attempting to find some kind of common ground that hasn’t been lost in the thick of it all.
The two of us met for dinner at the City View Bar and Grill, Bell only briefly mentioning the eclipsing outlook before ordering us beers and then hitting on our waitress, who he claimed was only pretending not to remember him. A story of questionable content about the same long-legged blonde occurred before our meals, and then more shots strategically placed on his tab.
We then ventured away from the top of the hill and headed down to 709 Railroad Street, a local DIY music venue that Bell’s domesticated social circle frequents. It was here at a local punk rock show that I aimed to develop some sort of perspective on the writer as a person, his friends and fellow artists seeming like the type who would know him best.
However, following several sidewalk conversations and roughly a half-hour where my subject simply wondered off to some undisclosed secret location on the premises, I was at a complete loss for words and thoughts. It was during this time that I asked around, the majority of the youthful deviants spaced out in groupings, having absolutely no idea who I was asking about, and furthermore what my purpose for being there was.
As I perused alternative corners of the area around the venue, listening in for any shred of a varying point of view on Christopher S. Bell, his trials and tribulations in the written word, and the little pieces of his hometown that make him click, I regrettably found no answers to such questions. While there were those who knew the man or knew of his actions, for the most part everyone remained silently inept or lost in their own private little worlds.
Bell’s hazy return to the sidewalk and soon the inside stage area still left me with all the same blanks that needed filled. We stood off to the side watching a young punk band called The Nullifiers lose their voices and minds over some inaudible message, before I group of girls in their early twenties walked, and Bell, without hesitation, walked out and away from it all.
From that point it became a blurred clutter of sips taken from half-empty bottles, inhaled sentiments from sloppily-rolled joints, and conversations with faces that he seemed to know, but that I couldn’t come close to placing with my research, or the shadowed outline of characters from his first novel and upcoming book of short stories. We jumped from abandoned suburban mansions to cheaply rented city rooftops, each and every move he took seeming to be justifiably him, even if I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about the situation that made it that way.
I lost myself in the night, and as I sat across from what I realized I would soon be telling my editor, was a failed attempt at a human-interest story, I slowly began to understand what he was going for, even though it didn’t seem like him, or at least the him that I thought I knew well-enough from his work. A first-person narrative usually rings true even if there are some lies buried within the mix. I clear my throat and begin again with a shitty grin.

So what have you been listening to lately?
- See now that’s a really good asshole question.
Yeah, I kind of figured it would be.
- Shit man, I don’t know. I mean, there’s the local stuff, but that’s something I hope you get well enough now that I don’t have to provide an explanation. But, well other than that I’m not sure what to say, cause there’s some choice cuts filtering into the mix, but I’m not sure if they’ll last, ya know? I feel like my musical taste is something that continually falls apart on me. And that’s not to say that there isn’t a solid foundation there. It’s just that shit gets weird sometimes, and I find myself obliging in whatever way feels right.
Well strangely enough that makes sense to me.
- Really, cause that was just a bunch of bullshit. Bob Dylan, The Pixies, and Pet Sounds.
Well okay, all three of which are mentioned in your work.
- You’re trying to get back on track now, aren’t you?
Call it journalistic intuition.
- Well okay, I’m gonna cut the shit with you right now. I don’t know how I feel about the books, that is to say the last one and now this new one, and I’m not sure I want to think about it anymore. I mean, part of me understands that any reader might possibly want to know what the author was thinking, but to be perfectly honest, sometimes I’m not sure what I’m thinking. Sometimes I write something to help me get through whatever it is I’m going through, and other times I write something because I hope that somebody will get something out of it. But it’s mostly all for me. I mean, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?
Maybe. I mean, sometimes we have bigger purposes.
- I think I’ve given up on that notion at this point in my life.
Oh yeah, why’s that?
- Because most of the time they never seem to care.
Who doesn’t seem to care?
- All the same people you’re wondering about. All the people you don’t know, and all the ones that think it’s a bigger piece of them in the work than it really is. They don’t care about the bigger purpose, just whether or not they get enough airtime.
Well okay, fair enough. So who get the most airtime in your new book of short stories LEVEL UP AND LEVEL OUT?
- Well, I do obviously.
Yeah, but I mean, besides you, who does?
- Ya know, if you haven’t been able to figure all of this out yet, I mean, after following me around with a pen and paper the whole day, then I’m not sure I really want to tell you.
Why not? I mean, didn’t I put up the effort?
- Well yeah, but I really don’t think it’s that hard of a concept to grasp onto.
Help me out a little bit here.
- Ya know, I’m not gonna do that, but I am gonna do something else for you right now.
Oh yeah, what’s that?
- I’m gonna let you ask me your first question again.
What, about tonight?
- Yeah, about tonight.
Okay, so what do you have to say about tonight?
- Not too much. I got too fucked up, and then forgot to remind myself that I really need to stop pretending like I hate her, because she’s so much better at it than I am.
Who is?
- Hey I only said I’d let you ask your first question. When we stop being assholes and start being drunken acquaintances, then maybe I’ll elaborate on the rest.

Soon we were both quiet, looking down at our empty plates and trying our damnedest to remind ourselves to forget about all the little things that happened in-between point A. and point B. that night. While I knew that I would be okay with myself; other articles, deadlines and assholes to interview coming in the following weeks, for some reason I wasn’t sure if Christopher would be able to do so.
Then I thought about it more, realizing that those little things I tried to figure out all night were exactly the type of material he was looking for, or possibly trying his hardest to avoid. He would find it difficult to venture out and away from them, as they were, like the town he lived in, so very much a part of the subtext. Nothing much felt like it was hidden passively between the lines anymore, and in that sense, I at least understand now why we didn’t talk about much of anything. Like everyone else, I too, had become a part of it.

we talked tonight like the television was our fireplace. we looked at each other and i said the word "hopelessness" and you looked at me like you'd been waiting to hear somebody say it. that word. you have goals. i said, "that's great that you have something you want to do." and you somehow communicated, before you barely said it, that you're just trying to get out of the ditch...just trying to get rid of the pain, and then you'd go from there. you would travel, maybe.
i said things that i'd actually been thinking lately. they just sort of slipped out of my mouth after you would make me laugh. like, thinking that life was totally great when the light from two smiles warmed our vision, like, for a moment we were part of it, but happy. we were happy. good job! okay, keep being honest, keep opening things up...he digs holes for a living, and you're digging, digging, with him everyday, at home, by yourself.
you don't connect much these days. you try to, then you get scared and freeze up and don't budge like all the fucking lifelesses you tried so hard not to shake in high school cause you couldn't stand their standstill. and now you are so scared. you won't even move. sometimes, maybe a little...but you're know you're just looking for nothing, walking around, being separate.
we are all so separate. do people really know each other? do you believe that? you can tell me if you want.

Another Missed Chance? by Jason Kish

5. I FOUND A HEART IN A NEWSPAPER WITH “FOR FREE” ETCHED OVER it and read it twice. I wrote this on the back:

"All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me. That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?"

I pocketed it in late, rainy June: sad memories.
I remember the drive from desolation.
The sky, once filled with passion, was empty --
But her home felt hot.

Nervously unfolding the note.
Nervously checking the address.
Nervously moving through rain and fog;
Through the opening door and
Nervously exclaiming, “Hi.”

I haven’t forgotten that thunderstorm, it’s heralding:
A FLOOD! 9 PM, 3 DEAD! Three survivors.
-- shadowlike objects leaned forward to hear.
The trees and wind coughed? You can’t be sure,
But you hear chaos in the dark
You’re groping towards. Your feet are awkward;
The heavy clothes cling to you -- you just want
To take them off.

Our new life was always starting again.

We met first at a restaurant
She needed a light; the conversation wasn’t forced.
Her hand writing on the note was refined:
Salt mixed with sweat and rain; ions, channels
For electricity into my body.

When I look for God, I visit her -- Most of all
I remember the end of it.

4. She said, “Meg’s sleeping”; she said, “Keep quiet.”

Her darkened, pale-walled bedroom lit by her voice;
The house tired and noisy, the quiet porch.
Each small sound the sigh of a ghost trapped beneath
Fragile floorboards. My ear pressed to the wall,
I heard the moment of death. I found fist-
Sized cavities scarred into drywall.

Death, my friend, walking quietly before me.
We’re comfortable, I’m not getting rid of him.
We’re both smiling, but I quietly cried
When I thought the thunderstorm
Had pushed its way in, followed me,
Tip-toeing gently underneath my own feet,
Like acid on the groaning floorboards.

I couldn’t take it, we exited to the porch and waited.

3. “You get it?”

“Yes, but they’re all pretend, those faces you see, they put them on one night, for that night only, not like the others they wear at work or on the phone with…”

“I had another dream about her.”
“Oh?”

“She calls me… about Mark. How he’s doing. And about Jess…”
“Yes, but they’re dead.”

“Yes. And, then I remember that. So, I say, ‘They’re dead, I thought… Who is this?’ Then the line is static.
… … … … … I’m sorry.”

“In some way ………….. It’s like everyone dies again...
“When I wake up?”

You’re losing it! Wake up!

2. One, two, three, four, five, none --
I count noises from the house.
I count steps down to the yard.
I close and open my eyes slowly.

Her blonde hair is the sun at midnight,
The lawn is hushed by breathy trees.
There is a warm-heart-beat, a terrible realization,
A fighter plane struck by friendly lightning.

Dog snarling, image walking, talking with
The smooth rhythm of his tongue.
And she tells you he is a friend.
Do not be afraid, everyone is safe tonight,
And those other things, people, and places
Never existed, never were.

She pets him: six, seven, eight, nine soft noises
From the lonely visitor.
We give him the sandwiches.

“But, I still think I see her…”

1. The yard gets more and more crowded as I dived into memory. You hit the water head first and linger for a brief second -- submerge -- disappear with your growing wings -- you fold inward against yourself, sprouting into something dangerous, a moth, a villain, her tomb, her coffin, a cup of coffee… the last one you drank with her, you emptied your cup -- stared into her circular face, more of the same -- you say, to her,

“MORE OF THE SAME!” … we went through it again and again.
“Well, what about Mark and Jess?”

You stare into her face, into her eyes, and she stares into red eyes, and there are lines, going up and down her face, circles of lines, short lines of laughter -- long lines of panic and jealousy, engraved into her silver skin -- a touch would be electricity for your flesh, the pin-prick sensation of broken love -- your heart folded like moth wings, empty hands on the table, like the napkin over your lap -- you’re done. So, you say that, but keep looking into her eyes and nothing moves. It was nice while it lasted, but you’re done -- eaten, chewed, a regurgitated circular mess, and it’s all there, reflected in her stony eyes, the hum of the ceiling fans, the empty waiter, flirts and smiles, the old man chewing loudly from the corner -- right there, wrapped into those dark holes -- a singularity of your existence, that brief look -- she leans forward, one quick breath, the candle out, but you’ve already flooded into the streets with the sound of her breath pulling you, but you move faster than humming ceiling fans and old men chewing, faster than broken voices at the bar, than cries of angels on the street corner, faster than sputtering cars can crash -- you are moving forward into a new universe, but that moment is everything. You are trapped in memory, in singularity, coiled in your bed like ouroboros.

“… her face on other people’s faces… sometimes.”
“In my face?”
“Yes, in your face too… like at the restaurant… like right now.

“The days and nights blur together anymore. It’s hard to find the ability to see through all the fog that stays inside of my head -- I go in circles and find myself falling asleep waiting for the rain, wondering about life, about the loud noises, about newspapers and obituaries. When I wake up, and go outside, I think I see her at the end of the yard in a blood red wedding dress, smiling. God, God… I don’t know. I see His shadow stretched across the lawn in the shape of a cursed crucifix. What life is this? I place an ad in the paper for them all every year. I fall asleep listening to small splashes under the moon, cringing, but each one is small, just slips away gently.”

Maybe you should quit it all? Move in here? Just… stay with me.”

“I can see myself here… as one of those men who live on the outskirts of town, a quiet life, a town where no one goes, can you see that? Do those men know they are there, completely crazy? Did they see it coming? Do they want that? Do they choose that?”

0. A cold, gray light cuts into our flesh. The world is fear.
You can hear her laughter in the dark, tangled wood,
A pure symbol of emotion, an animal that paces
Back and forth, a parrot, bright bitter lime, sun-
Cast on a fluttering red wedding gown.

The wind picked up, and she pressed herself close,
I thought I heard her thinking because her voice
Was caught in her throat.
It was a strange clicking sound, like the cold
Had set in her heart. I felt deep regret.
I felt eyes all over my body:

Not body on body. Just a blank stare.
Not body on body. Just pent up rage.
A shadow, not me, walking the street, but it was like
The skeleton cross painted over the lawn,
It was Death walking quietly before me,
Something that just wasn’t there.

“You can stare right through me tonight,” I tell her gently,
And I can stare right through you, too.”
“We’re both waiting behind windows that can’t be opened.”

I say, smiling: “No. I saw you, believe me, standing quietly on a lost shore,
With the fog of memory pressed gently against your back.
When I held you, we evaporated.
And, I thought, quietly… that’s love.”

One language of love is poetry.
It’s there, like nowhere else, really;
You listen for it, but can’t hear.
Or hear it as a dream
Forgotten at work the day after.
That’s why time gets to me --
The question is always the answer.