I Want To Crawl In A Hole Quotes

I want to run or die or get fucked up. I want to be blind and dumb and have no heart. I want to crawl in a hole and never come out. I want to wipe my existence straight off the map. Straight off the fucking map.

I pointed to a low bowl filled with what purported to be stew, but then Noah said, “Are you going to point, or are you going to eat?” “I just like to know what I’m putting in my mouth before I swallow.” Noah arched an eyebrow, and I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

How insufficient the memory, to fail before death. how will hear these notes when the train slides into the yard, the lights turned out, and the song lingers with breaths rising from empty seats? I know I am too human to praise what is fading. But for now, I just want to listen as the train fills completely with warm water, and we are all swimming slowly toward the man with Mozart flowing from his hands. I want nothing but to put my fingers inside his mouth, let that prayer hum through my veins. I want crawl into the hole in his violin. I want to sleep there until my flesh becomes music.

I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I wanted to crawl into a hole at the bottom of a ravine, then be buried under an avalanche, and then die. I wanted... to cry.

You okay with all of this?" I whispered to Daemon. He shrugged. "Not like I can stop her." I knew he could if he wanted, which meant he didn't have a problem with it. "Cookie?" he offered, holding a cookie full of chocolate chips. Upset tummy or not, there was no way I could refuse that. "Sure." His lips tipped up one side and he leaned toward me, his mouth inches from mine. "Come and get it." Come and get...? Daemon placed half the cookie between those full, totally kissable lips. Oh, holy alien babies everywhere... My mouth dropped open. Several of the girls at the table made sounds that had me wondering if they were turning into puddles under the table, but I couldn't bring myself to check out what they really were doing. That cookie—those lips—were right there. Heat swept over my cheeks. I could feel the eyes of everyone on else, and Daemon... dear God, Daemon arched his brows, daring me. Dee gagged. "I think I'm going to hurl." Mortified, I wanted to crawl into a hole. What did he think I was going to do? Take the cookie from his mouth like something straight out of an R rated version of Lady and the Tramp? Heck, I kind of wanted to and I wasn't sure what that said about me. Daemon reached up and took the cookie. There was a gleam to his eyes, as if he just won some battle. "Times up, Kitten." I stared at him. Breaking the cookie into two, he handed me the larger piece. I snatched it away, half tempted to throw it back in his face, but it was... it was chocolate chip. So I ate it and loved it.

Cookie?” he offered, holding up a cookie full of chocolate chips. Upset tummy or not, there was no way I could refuse that. “Sure.” His lips tipped to one side and he leaned towards me, his mouth inches from mine. “Come and get it.” Come and get…? Daemon placed half the cookie between those full, totally kissable lips. Oh, holy alien babies everywhere… My mouth dropped open. Several of the girls at the table made sounds that had me wondering if they were turning into puddles under the table, but I couldn’t bring myself to check out what they were doing. That cookie – those lips – were right there. Heat swept over my cheeks. I could feel the eyes of everyone else and Demon… dear God, Daemon arched his brows, daring me. Dee gagged. “I think I’m going to hurl.” Mortified, I wanted to crawl into a hole. What did he think I was going to do? Take that cookie out of his mouth like something straight out of an R-rated version of Lady and the Tramp? Heck, I kind of wanted to, and I wasn’t too sure what that said about me. Daemon reached up and took the cookie. There was a gleam in his eyes, as if he’d just won some battle. “Time’s up, Kitten.

And then, oh my God, there we are on the big screen. "They’re on the first date! Hopefully it’s not too soon to get that first kiss!” I want to crawl in a hole and die. People in the stands are yelling at us to kiss, and everyone in our box is laughing and taking pictures of us. Well, everyone except Wes.

More than anything, I wanted to crawl into a hole and pull it in after me. I wanted to be not.

Well, the way I see it, you’ve got two options. You can step back while me and the guys embarrass the fuck out of this bitch and make her crawl back into whatever hole she crawled out of. Or… we could go with option B.” I’m trembling from head to toe. “Which is?” His lips just barely touch my ear when he answers. “Option B is you let us worry about the aftermath and you handle this shit yourself,” he says. “And when I say handle it, I mean I want you to completely… fuck… her… up.

I just want to crawl into a hole and die.

Well, they should be glad, then, he said, that we did it, shouldn't they? That we stole Death's death from them, I mean, so that they could never have it, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much they wanted it. That was good for them, wasn't it? Aren't they lucky? You're asking me? the Coyote said. He crawled out from his hidey-hole, lifted a hind leg to pass a few drops of water. Overhead Crows were calling Crows to feast, heading in numbers for the mountain at the end of Ymr. Well I think they are, Dar Oakley said. And what have we ever got for it? Stories, Coyote said. Not to tell you something you don't already know. We're made of stories now, brother. It's why we never die even if we do.

We have arrived at an interesting moment in the evolution of our species when a smart person in a first-world culture is pestered by two contradictory feelings: first that he is as special a creature as nature has yet produced and second that he's not very special at all, just excited matter here for a while and off again into universal dark matter. This first feeling inflates him and makes him want to puff out his chest and preen a bit. This second feeling makes him want to crawl in a hole, act carelessly, or sit inert on the sofa. How unfortunate for a creature to be buffeted in such contradictory ways! These twin feelings lead a person to the following pair of conclusions: that while he is perhaps quite smart, he is nevertheless rather like a cockroach, trapped with a brain that really isn't big enough for his purposes, perhaps trapped in a corner of an academic discipline, a research field, a literary genre, or in some other small place, trapped by his creatureliness, and trapped by life's very smallness. I would like to dub this the god-bug syndrome: the prevalent and perhaps epidemic feeling of greatness walking hand-in-hand with smallness that plagues so many people today.

The idea of you lynching anybody! It’s amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you’re brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man’s safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind—as long as it’s day-time and you’re not behind him. “Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men, in the day-time, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people—whereas you’re just as brave, and no braver. Why don’t your juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark—and it’s just what they would do. “So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back, and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one mistake, and the other is that you didn’t come in the dark, and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man—Buck Harkness, there—and if you hadn’t had him to start you, you’d a taken it out in blowing. “You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble and danger. You don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts ‘Lynch him, lynch him!’ you’re afraid to back down—afraid you’ll be found out to be what you are—cowards—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves onto that half-a-man’s coat tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do, is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching’s going to be done, it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they’ll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave—and take your half-a-man with you...

When you, sweet sleeper, wake in the morning, one arm thrown over your golden-sticky eyes, sheets a-mangle, your dreams still flit through you, ragged, full of holes. You can remember the man with the yellow eyes, but not why he chased you. You can remember the hawk footed woman on your roof, but not what she whispered. That is my fault. I could not help it. I tromped though you in the night and ate up your dreams, a moth through wool. I didn't want them all, only the sweetest veins, like fat marbling a slab of ruby meat, the marrowy slick of what she whispered, why he ran. I am a rowling thing--my snout raises up toward the moon to catch the scent of your sweat. I show my flat teeth to the night wind. I beg permission of your bed clothes to curl up in the curve of your stomach, to gnaw on your shoulders, your breasts, your eyelids. I must open up a hole in you, to crawl through to the red place where your dreams spool out. You put your arm around me in the night. Do you remember? My belly was taut and black, a tapir's belly, a tapir's snout snuffling for your breath as a pig for truffles. You were my truffle, my thick, earthy mushroom. You were delicious, and I thank you for my supper.

I sat on a rock. Curran stretched out next to me. He looked like hell. Some time ago the ichor covering us had begun to smell like rotten fish, and while we crawled around underground, loose dirt had mixed with it to form a cement-like substance on his skin and mine, in my case no doubt tainted by whatever blood seeped through the bandages. My shoulder hurt. My back hurt, too. Neither of us had eaten since morning. Curran had to be starving. Some pair we made. He noticed me studying him. “Here we are in a filthy hole.” “Yep. Looking like two ghouls who rolled in some rotting corpses.” He flashed a grin at me. “Hey, baby. Want to fool around?” I laughed at him.

She merely wiped the floor with paper towels and said nothing, brushing her free hand against my shoulder blade—my shoulder blade!—as she carried the soaked paper to the trash can, never holding me fast, refraining not out of lack of humanity but out of fear of being drawn into a request for further tenderness, a request that could only bring her face-to-face with some central revulsion, a revulsion of her husband or herself or both, a revulsion that had come from nowhere, or from her, or perhaps from something I’d done or failed to do, who knew, she didn’t want to know, it was too great a disappointment, far better to get on with the chores, with the baby, with the work, far better to leave me to my own devices, as they say, to leave me to resign myself to certain motifs, to leave me to disappear guiltily into a hole of my own digging. When the time came to stop her from leaving, I did not know what to think or wish for, her husband who was now an abandoner, a hole-dweller, a leaver who had left her to fend for herself, as she said, who’d failed to provide her with the support and intimacy she needed, she complained, who was lacking some fundamental wherewithal, who no longer wanted her, who beneath his scrupulous marital motions was angry, whose sentiments had decayed into a mere sense of responsibility, a husband who, when she shouted, “I don’t need to be provided for! I’m a lawyer! I make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year! I need to be loved!” had silently picked up the baby and smelled the baby’s sweet hair, and had taken the baby for a crawl in the hotel corridor, and afterward washed the baby’s filthy hands and soft filthy knees, and thought about what his wife had said, and saw the truth in her words and an opening, and decided to make another attempt at kindness, and at nine o’clock, with the baby finally drowsy in his cot, came with a full heart back to his wife to find her asleep, as usual, and beyond waking. In short, I fought off the impulse to tell Rachel to go fuck herself.

As hard as I try, as hard as I always try, I cannot keep the sounds inside. Pain is a unique thing. You can feel so much of it at once that you don’t feel anything at all. You can have a little bit of pain and feel like crawling into a hole and dying. Then there’s the other amount of pain, the kind where it feels like the whole world is caving in on you and nothing will ever matter until it goes away, and everything is better again, and then you realize that you can’t keep in the screams, the laughter, the tears, the shouts. Everything wants to express itself at once because if it doesn’t, you will break into a million pieces and the pain will take over in ways it didn't before.

Life sometimes is like tossing a coin in the air calling heads or tails, but it doesn’t matter what side it lands on; life goes on. It is hard when you’ve lost the will to fight because you’ve been fighting for so long. You are smothered by the pain. Mentally, you are drained. Physically, you are weak. Emotionally, you are weighed down. Spiritually, you do not have one tiny mustard seed of faith. The common denominator is that other people’s problems have clouded your mind with all of their negativity. You cannot feel anything; you are numb. You do not have the energy to surrender, and you choose not to escape because you feel safe when you are closed in. As you move throughout the day, you do just enough to get by. Your mindset has changed from giving it your all to—well, something is better than nothing. You move in slow motion like a zombie, and there isn’t any color, just black and white, with every now and then a shade of gray. You’ve shut everyone out and crawled back into the rabbit hole. Life passes you by as you feel like you cannot go on. You look around for help; for someone to take the pain away and to share your suffering, but no one is there. You feel alone, you drift away when you glance ahead and see that there are more uphill battles ahead of you. You do not have the option to turn around because all of the roads are blocked. You stand exactly where you are without making a step. You try to think of something, but you are emotionally bankrupt. Where do you go from here? You do not have a clue. Standing still isn’t helping because you’ve welcomed unwanted visitors; voices are in your head, asking, “What are you waiting for? Take the leap. Jump.” They go on to say, “You’ve had enough. Your burdens are too heavy.” You walk towards the cliff; you turn your head and look at the steep hill towards the mountain. The view isn’t helping; not only do you have to climb the steep hill, but you have to climb up the mountain too. You take a step; rocks and dust fall off the cliff. You stumble and you move forward. The voices in your head call you a coward. You are beginning to second-guess yourself because you want to throw in the towel. You close your eyes; a tear falls and travels to your chin. As your eyes are closed the Great Divine’s voice is louder; yet, calmer, soothing; and you feel peace instantly. Your mind feels light, and your body feels balanced. The Great Divine whispers gently and softly in your ear: “Fallen Warrior, I know you have given everything you’ve got, and you feel like you have nothing left to give. Fallen Warrior, I know it’s been a while since you smiled. Fallen Warrior, I see that you are hurting, and I feel your pain. Fallen Warrior, this is not the end. This is the start of your new beginning. Fallen Warrior, do not doubt My or your abilities; you have more going for you than you have going against you. Fallen Warrior, keep moving, you have what it takes; perseverance is your middle name. Fallen Warrior, you are not the victim! You are the victor! You step back because you know why you are here. You know why you are alive. Sometimes you have to be your own Shero. As a fallen warrior, you are human; and you have your moments. There are days when you have more ups than downs, and some days you have more downs than ups. I most definitely can relate. I was floating through life, but I had to change my mindset. During my worst days, I felt horrible, and when I started to think negatively I felt like I was dishonoring myself. I felt sick, I felt afraid, fear began to control my every move. I felt like demons were trying to break in and take over my life.

In A Hole" Grass grows greener On the other side Corn grows sweeter On the other side And I watch, and I watch, and I watch And I see too much And I broke my face and my head Grows too much God spits on my soul There's something dead inside my hole In my hole, in my hole, in my hole I step crueler But less defined Striped cats cooler But so refine And I want to see What I want to be And I see me on a toxic screen And I'm dancing to a scream God spits on my soul There's something dead inside my hole In my hole, in my hole, in my hole How can something crawl within My rubber holy baked bean tin It's God to me, it's God to me This is heart and soul Oh, heart and soul Yeah, heart and soul Oh, heart and soul Oh, heart, heart, heart, heart and soul Heart and fucking soul My heart and soul My heart and soul My heart and soul Heart and soul Heart and soul Yeah, heart and soul Yeah, heart and soul Yeah, heart, heart, heart Heart, heart, heart, heart, heart

What would you do if Ree became gravely ill?” Father Johnson asked Marlboro Man. “Well, sir,” Marlboro Man replied, “I’d take care of her.” “Who’s going to do the cooking in your household?” Marlboro Man smiled. “Ree’s a great cook,” he answered. I sat up proudly in my chair, trying not to remember the Linguine with Clam Sauce and the Marinated Flank Steak and whatever other well-intentioned meals I’d massacred early in our relationship. “What about the dishes?” Father Johnson continued, channeling Gloria Steinem. “See yourself helping out there?” Marlboro Man scratched his chin and paused. “Sure,” he said. “Honestly, these aren’t really things we’ve sat down and talked about.” His voice was kind. Polite. I wanted to crawl in a hole. I wanted to have my gums scraped. I wanted to go fight that huge prairie fire from a while back. Anything would be better than this. “Have you talked about how many children you’d like to have?” “Yes, sir,” Marlboro Man said. “And?” Father Johnson prodded. “I’d like to have six or so,” Marlboro Man answered, a virile smile spreading across his face. “And what about Ree?” Father Johnson asked. “Well, she says she’d like to have one,” Marlboro Man said, looking at me and touching my knee. “But I’m workin’ on her.

I push my eye farther into the crack, smushing my cheek. The door rattles. Her arm freezes. The needle stops. Instantly, her shadow fills the room, a mountain on the wall. “Leidah?” I hold my breath. No hiding in the wood-box this time. Before I even have time to pull my eye away, the door opens. My mother's face, like the moon in the dark hallway. She squints and takes a step toward me. “Lei-lee?” I want to tell her I’ve had a nightmare about the Sisters, that I can’t sleep with all this whispering and worrying from her—and what are you sewing in the dark, Mamma? I try to move my lips, but I have no mouth. My tongue is gone; my nose is gone. I don’t have a face anymore. It has happened again. I am lying on my back, flatter than bread. My mother’s bare feet slap against my skin, across my belly, my chest. She digs her heel in, at my throat that isn’t there. I can see her head turning toward her bedroom. Snores crawl under the closed door. The door to my room is open, but she can’t see my bed from where she stands, can’t see that my bed is empty. She nods to herself: everything as it should be. Her foot grinds into my chin. The door to the sewing room closes behind her. I struggle to sit up. I wiggle my hips and jiggle my legs. It is no use. I am stuck, pressed flat into the grain of wood under me. But it’s not under me. It is me. I have become the floor. I know it’s true, even as I tell myself I am dreaming, that I am still in bed under the covers. My blood whirls inside the wood knots, spinning and rushing, sucking me down and down. The nicks of boot prints stomp and kick at my bones, like a bruise. I feel the clunk of one board to the next, like bumps of a wheel over stone. And then I am all of it, every knot, grain, and sliver, running down the hall, whooshing like a river, ever so fast, over the edge and down a waterfall, rushing from room to room. I pour myself under and over and through, feeling objects brush against me as I pass by. Bookshelves, bedposts, Pappa’s slippers, a fallen dressing gown, the stubby ends of an old chair. A mouse hiding inside a hole in the wall. Mor’s needle bobbing up and down. How is this possible? I am so wide, I can see both Mor and Far at the same time, even though they are in different rooms, one wide awake, the other fast asleep. I feel my father’s breath easily, sinking through the bed into me, while Mor’s breath fights against me, against the floor. In and out, each breath swimming away, away, at the speed of her needle, up up up in out in out outoutout—let me out, get me out, I want out. That’s what Mamma is thinking, and I hear it, loud and clear. I strain my ears against the wood to get back into my own body. Nothing happens. I try again, but this time push hard with my arms that aren’t there. Nothing at all. I stop and sink, letting go, giving myself into the floor. Seven, soon to be eight… it’s time, time’s up, time to go. The needle is singing, as sure as stitches on a seam. I am inside the thread, inside her head. Mamma is ticking—onetwothreefourfivesix— Seven. Seven what? And why is it time to go? Don’t leave me, Mamma. I beg her feet, her knees, her hips, her chest, her heart, my begging spreading like a big squid into the very skin of her. It’s then that I feel it. Something is happening to Mamma. Something neither Pappa nor I have noticed. She is becoming dust. She is drier than the wood I have become. - Becoming Leidah Quoted by copying text from the epub version using BlueFire e-reader.

The defenders retreated, but in good order. A musket flamed and a ball shattered a marine’s collar bone, spinning him around. The soldiers screamed terrible battle-cries as they began their grim job of clearing the defenders off the parapet with quick professional close-quarter work. Gamble trod on a fallen ramrod and his boots crunched on burnt wadding. The French reached steps and began descending into the bastion. 'Bayonets!' Powell bellowed. 'I want bayonets!' 'Charge the bastards!' Gamble screamed, blinking another man's blood from his eyes. There was no drum to beat the order, but the marines and seamen surged forward. 'Tirez!' The French had been waiting, and their muskets jerked a handful of attackers backwards. Their officer, dressed in a patched brown coat, was horrified to see the savage looking men advance unperturbed by the musketry. His men were mostly conscripts and they had fired too high. Now they had only steel bayonets with which to defend themselves. 'Get in close, boys!' Powell ordered. 'A Shawnee Indian named Blue Jacket once told me that a naked woman stirs a man's blood, but a naked blade stirs his soul. So go in with the steel. Lunge! Recover! Stance!' 'Charge!' Gamble turned the order into a long, guttural yell of defiance. Those redcoats and seamen, with loaded weapons discharged them at the press of the defenders, and a man in the front rank went down with a dark hole in his forehead. Gamble saw the officer aim a pistol at him. A wounded Frenchman, half-crawling, tried to stab with his sabre-briquet, but Gamble kicked him in the head. He dashed forward, sword held low. The officer pulled the trigger, the weapon tugged the man's arm to his right, and the ball buzzed past Gamble's mangled ear as he jumped down into the gap made by the marines charge. A French corporal wearing a straw hat drove his bayonet at Gamble's belly, but he dodged to one side and rammed his bar-hilt into the man's dark eyes. 'Lunge! Recover! Stance!

The door was still open, so I shut it and was returning to my desk when I braked. There was a backpack resting on the other side of my desk chair. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Missy’s. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Holly’s or the cousin’s. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Huh?” she barked, her head swinging around to me. A quick glance confirmed what I already knew. She was drunk. “Nothing.” She pulled out one of her shirts, but it wasn’t her normal pajama top. She was really drunk. I picked up Shay’s bag and checked the contents to make sure it was his. It was. I saw his planner with his name scrawled at the top, so I zipped that bag and put it in the back of my closet. No one needed to go through it. I didn’t think Missy would, but I just never knew. Dropping into my chair, I picked up my phone to text Shay as Missy fell to the floor. I looked up to watch. I couldn’t not see this. I was tempted to video it, but I was being nice. For once. As Missy wrestled with her jeans and lifted them over her head to throw into her closet, I texted Shay. Me: You left your bag here. Missy let out a half-gurgled moan and a cry of frustration at the same time. She didn’t stand, instead crawling to the closet. She grabbed another pair of pants. Those weren’t her pajamas, either. As she pulled them on—or tried since her feet kept eluding the pants’ hole—my phone buzzed back. Coleman: Can I pick it up in the morning? I texted back. Me: When? Missy got one leg in. Success. I wanted to thrust my fist in the air for her. My phone buzzed again. Coleman: Early. My playbook is in there. I groaned. Me: When is early? I’m in college, Coleman. Sleeping in is mandatory. Coleman: Nine too early for you? I can come back to get it now. Nine was doable. Me: Let’s do an exchange. You bring me coffee, and I’ll meet you at the parking lot curb with your bag. Coleman: Done. Decaf okay? I glared at my phone. Me: Back to hating you. Coleman: Never stop that. The world’s equilibrium will be fucked up. I have to know what’s right and wrong. Don’t screw with my moral compass, Cute Ass. Oh, no! No way. Me: Third rule of what we don’t talk about. No nicknames unless they reconfirm our mutual dislike for each other. No Cute Ass. His response was immediate. Coleman: Cunt Ass? A second squeak from me. Me: NO! I could almost hear him laughing. Coleman: Relax. I know. Clarke’s Ass. That’s how you are in my phone. The tension left my shoulders. Me: See you in the morning. 9 sharp. Coleman: Night. I put my phone down, but then it buzzed once again. Coleman: Ass. I was struggling to wipe this stupid grin off my face. All was right again. I plugged my phone in, pulled my laptop back toward me, and sent a response to Gage’s email. I’ll sit with you, but only if we’re in the opposing team’s section. He’d be pissed, but that was the only way. I turned the computer off, and by then Missy was climbing up the ladder in a bright pink silk shirt. The buttons were left buttoned, and her pajama bottoms were a pair of corduroy khakis. I was pretty sure she didn’t brush her teeth, but before my head even hit the pillow, she was snoring

As soon as I finished my last diary entry, I grabbed my books, stopped by André’s locker (hey, he’s part of my job duties!), and rushed straight to bio. But, unfortunately, I had arrived just seconds TOO LATE. . . . MACKENZIE SHOWS BRANDON THE PICS OF ANDRÉ AND ME! I just stood there FREAKING OUT as Brandon scrolled through the photos. He looked shocked, surprised, and hurt! All at the same time. . . . BRANDON LOOKS AT THE PICS! Right then all I wanted to do was dig a really deep hole right next to my desk, CRAWL into it, and DIE!! Once class started, I could practically feel Brandon staring at the back of my head. But whenever I turned around to make eye contact, he just gazed blankly at his bio book. Of course MacKenzie sat there with a big fat SMIRK on her face. She was SO proud of herself for pretty much DESTROYING my friendship with Brandon. I wanted to walk right up to her and say, “Congratulations, MacKenzie!” and give her a high five! In the FACE. With a CHAIR! Just kidding ! NOT ! Seriously! That girl is lucky I’m a very peaceful and nonviolent person. I just totally ignored her when she started EYEBALLING me all EVIL-LIKE. . . . MACKENZIE,

With everything that has happened, it would be really easy for me to crawl in a hole and say, “It’s not fair.” But I feel the opposite. A friend of mine asked me once, “If time travel were real, where would you go?” I said, “I would love to go back to when I was first in the hospital. I would go back and tell myself that everything is going to be okay. You are going to have some ups and downs, but you’re going to be fine.” He looked at me and said, “If you could go back in time, why wouldn’t you just go back and stop yourself from being injured?” I said, “I hadn’t thought about that. But I wouldn’t do that.” I wouldn’t change anything that happened to me. If I had a do-over I would want to go through that depression, would want to go through everything that happened. I would want to screw up and end up spending ten days in jail. All those things had to happen for my life to come out the way it did. I wouldn’t change anything. Do I still get pissed from time to time that I have one arm and one leg? Yes, I do. Do I put on a pair of blue jeans and think, Man, from the right side this looks amazing, and then turn and look in the mirror and see that the left side the leg is smaller, the left butt cheek is smaller, and get pissed off? That’s just pure vanity, but yes, it’s there. But then I say, You know what, that’s okay because everything else is good.

A bone-deep tiredness resonates to my very soul. The kind of tired that makes a person want to give up. The kind of tired that makes me doubt the happiness I now have and worry of losing every day... because I’m not worthy. The kind of tired rooted in despair and insecurity. The kind of tired only the truly broken would understand. The kind that makes a person want to crawl into a hole somewhere – curl into a ball and disappear forever.

I must be a writer of words, and nothing else. … I do not like writing about words, because then I often use bad and wrong and stale and woolly words. What I like to do is to treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone or what-have-you, to hew, carve, mould, coil, polish and plane them into patterns, sequences, sculptures, fugues of sound expressing some lyrical impulse, some spiritual doubt or conviction, some dimly-realised truth I must try to reach and realise. … I am a painstaking, conscientious, involved and devious craftsman in words, however unsuccessful the result so often appears, and to whatever wrong uses I may apply my technical paraphernalia, I use everything and anything to make my poems work and move them in the directions I want to… … I, myself do not read poetry for anything but pleasure. I read only the poems I like. This means, of course, that I have to read a lot of poems I don't before I find the ones I do, but, when I do find the ones I do, then all I can say is, 'Here they are', and read them to myself for pleasure. Read the poems you like reading. Don't bother whether they're 'important', or if they'll live. What does it matter what poetry is, after all? If you want a definition of poetry, say: 'Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing', and let it go at that. All that matters about poetry is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be. All that matters is the eternal movement behind it, the vast undercurrents of human grief, folly, pretension, exaltation, or ignorance, however unlofty the intention of the poem. You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself, when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes or rhythms, 'Yes, this is it. This is why the poems moves me so. It is because of the craftsmanship.' But you're back again where you began. You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.

Allow me to confess the truth. I wanted to see myself in a hakama. Getting all worked up, causing my own heart to pound by imagining myself making some great, earthshaking speech, and then coming suddenly back to my senses and realizing what a worthless nobody I am, I'd begin to to wish I could crawl into a hole and disappear, but then, once again, my breast would swell and, unable to shake my wordly attachments, I'd think—well, at least let me wear a hakama in public. If I'm going to appear, it might as well be in a proper hakama.

Do you love him?” Jared looked at the closed door. “Yes.” “You’re lying.” He grabbed Jared’s shoulder and turned him around. “You’re fucking lying!” Jared’s face was inscrutable, his muscles rigid under his touch. “I’m in a good relationship. Let me be.” Gabriel tightened his grip. “Look me in the eye and say you love him. And I’ll go and never come back.” Jared clenched his jaw. “He’s everything I ever wanted in a boyfriend.” “That’s not what I asked.” Jared looked him in the eye and said, “I love him. I’m over you. I don’t love you anymore.” Gabe sucked a breath in. He felt sick to his stomach. “Prove it,” he whispered, hating himself a little for being so pathetic. “How am I supposed to prove it?” “Hold me. And I’ll know. I always knew.” Some emotion flickered across Jared’s face. “That’s silly.” “Prove it, then,” Gabriel repeated, firmer this time. “If you’re telling the truth, you’ve got nothing to hide, right?” Jared didn’t move. “Or do you?” Gabriel said, raising his eyebrows. Pressing his lips together, Jared lifted his arms and put them loosely around him before quickly letting go—but Gabe grabbed his shirt. “Real hug. Or are you scared?” Swearing through his teeth, Jared yanked him close and hugged him so hard he could barely breathe. Gabriel didn’t care: he melted against Jared, into him, wanting to hide in him, crawl under his skin and never let go. Cursing again, Jared squeezed him harder, and God, Jared’s scent, his arms around him, his strength—it felt so good, right and perfect on so many levels that he felt high. He’d been cold for so long. He felt warm now. Warm, cherished and loved. “Baby,” Jared croaked out, kissing Gabe’s brow and then his cheek, his breath unsteady and ragged. Gabriel smiled—Jared hadn’t called him that in years. “Missed you,” he whispered, closing his eyes and leaning eagerly into the touch as Jared kissed his face. “So much.” “I know,” Jared said, trailing his lips across Gabriel’s cheek and inhaling deeply. He seemed to be faring no better than Gabe: just as hungry for touch. And God, he’d been hungry for this. So hungry that at times it felt as though the need was gnawing a hole inside his soul.

I won’t be here this afternoon, Ollie. I’m going home to Oklahoma, to my mama and daddy.” She cocked her head, a quizzical expression on her face. “When are you coming back?” “I’m not. I mean, I’m not coming back to live here. I’ll come to visit, maybe. And you can come and visit me.” Her hand separated from mine. She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. “But we need you, Rebekah.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Your daddy will take care of you, I promise.” “You can’t go.” Tears dripped down her pale cheeks, her voice escalating into hysteria. “You can’t leave us!” Then I noticed the back door standing open, James and Dan gaping at their sister, confusion screwing up their faces. Frank stood behind them, Janie in his arms. I wanted to crawl in a hole. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. My lips trembled, looking for words to comfort them. To comfort me. James bolted through the hallway and wrapped his arms around Ollie, buried his head in her chest. I squatted down in front of them, determined to hold back my emotions but sensing them rising out of my control. The children weren’t supposed to care as much as I did. I laid my hand on the back of James’s head as if giving him a blessing. “Good-bye, little man. I’ll miss you.” “Me, too?” Dan bowled into me now, Janie toddling behind. “You, too, Dan.” I wrapped my arm around him, my nose near the scruffy skin of his neck. I breathed in the peculiar little-boy scent, like a wet dog in a closed room. Then I lifted Janie and kissed her nose before setting her back on the floor.

I first imagined each moment separate, inspired, consecutive. I could have cast the film—myself the female lead, you the star. I wore color—magenta. lavender, lime. You were in white, something textured that moved with your body. The music was sensuous, full orchestra scored for harp, piccolo, twelve double basses, a chime. The premiere, well-attended, prices high. Those who didn't like it find little to like in this world. The critics, through careful eyes, decided our performance was fresh, the location on the cliff above the ocean a splendid choice on someone's part, the humor warm. But time extracts. After the blast, the slow boil, the few grains cupped in the palm. The orchestra was really scored for wind and pelican, the dry flick of lizard. The lily, with petals like white tongues, appeared from nowhere, and the gull remained stone-still. as gulls do not do. The costumes were too simple: sun and salt on skin, and the actors kept changing roles, crawling into one another’s lines, saying the wrong words when they spoke at all, finding it hard to think in vertigo, their love clouded with a retinue of men and women, former actors who wanted the parts. The critics made no sense of the film, double-exposed, sprocket holes on either side and a garbled sound track that wove ‘always’ and ‘never’ into one word. The beginning appeared in the last scene, and the climax was a whorl of color, like looking too long at the sun through closed eyelids. One thing someone found to praise: a clear shot of a shining feather lying on a stone in the path.

There has to be a reason, we figure, for the serious dislike we seem to inspire over and over again … something that would explain how we could mean well but always end up making everything come out so wrong. After all, what has every disaster—every want-to-crawl-in-a-hole-and-die moment—had in common? It’s not the other people involved. It’s not the places where they happened. Nope. The only common factor we can find in every disaster is ourselves. To my mind, experience had proven over and again that given enough time, I could successfully irritate and tire out any coworker, friend, boyfriend, or family member into not just being done with me, but into seriously disliking me … and quite possibly even hating me. “Enthusiastically wanted” for just “being me”? No. That didn’t make any sense at all.

My customers mean well, but by the time the interview rolls around and Lindsay shows up, I want to crawl into a hole and stay hidden until hell freezes over or Leonardo DiCaprio dates someone his own age, whichever comes first. Probably the hell thing.

Before I could say anything the other gagged my mouth with a stone ball. I wanted to say what fools they were, but not the first fool in Dolingo. How could I confess anything with my mouth gagged? And the boy’s smell came to my nose again, so strong, almost as if he was right outside this cell, but now moving away. The one-eyed scientist pulled a knot at his neck and removed his hood. Bad Ibeji. I heard of one found at the foot of the Hills of Enchantment, which the Sangoma burned, even though it was already dead. Even in death it shook the unshakable woman, for it was the one mingi she would kill on sight. Bad Ibeji was never to be born but is not the unborn Douada, who roams the spirit world, wiggling on air like a tadpole and sometimes slipping into this world through a newborn. Bad Ibeji was the twin that the womb squeezed and crushed, tried to melt, but could not melt away. Bad Ibeji grows on its malcontent like that devil of the body’s own flesh, that bursts through the breasts of woman, killing her by poisoning her blood and bone. Bad Ibeji knows it will never be the favored one, so it attacks the other twin in the womb. Bad Ibeji sometimes dies at birth when the mind did not grow. When the mind did grow, all it knows to do is survive. It burrows into the twin’s skin, sucking food and water from his flesh. It leaves the womb with the twin, and sticks so tight to his skin that the mother thinks this too is the baby’s flesh, unformed, ugly like a burn and not handsome, and sometimes throws away them both to the open lands to die. It is wrinkled and puffy flesh, and skin and hair, and one eye big and a mouth that drools without stop, and one hand with claws and another stuck on the belly as if sewn, and useless legs that flap like fins, a thin penis, stiff like a finger, and hole that bursts shit like lava. It hates the twin for it will never be the twin, but it needs the twin for it cannot eat food, or drink water as it has no throat, and teeth grow anywhere, even above the eye. Parasite. Fat, and lumpy, like cow entrails tied together, and leaving slime where it crawls.

Before I could say anything the other gagged my mouth with a stone ball. I wanted to say what fools they were, but not the first fool in Dolingo. How could I confess anything with my mouth gagged? And the boy’s smell came to my nose again, so strong, almost as if he was right outside this cell, but now moving away. The one-eyed scientist pulled a knot at his neck and removed his hood. Bad Ibeji. I heard of one found at the foot of the Hills of Enchantment, which the Sangoma burned, even though it was already dead. Even in death it shook the unshakable woman, for it was the one mingi she would kill on sight. Bad Ibeji was never to be born but is not the unborn Douada, who roams the spirit world, wiggling on air like a tadpole and sometimes slipping into this world through a newborn. Bad Ibeji was the twin that the womb squeezed and crushed, tried to melt, but could not melt away. Bad Ibeji grows on its malcontent like that devil of the body’s own flesh, that bursts through the breasts of woman, killing her by poisoning her blood and bone. Bad Ibeji knows it will never be the favored one, so it attacks the other twin in the womb. Bad Ibeji sometimes dies at birth when the mind did not grow. When the mind did grow, all it knows to do is survive. It burrows into the twin’s skin, sucking food and water from his flesh. It leaves the womb with the twin, and sticks so tight to his skin that the mother thinks this too is the baby’s flesh, unformed, ugly like a burn and not handsome, and sometimes throws away them both to the open lands to die. It is wrinkled and puffy flesh, and skin and hair, and one eye big and a mouth that drools without stop, and one hand with claws and another stuck on the belly as if sewn, and useless legs that flap like fins, a thin penis, stiff like a finger, and hole that bursts shit like lava. It hates the twin for it will never be the twin, but it needs the twin for it cannot eat food, or drink water as it has no throat, and teeth grow anywhere, even above the eye. Parasite. Fat, and lumpy, like cow entrails tied together, and leaving slime where it crawls. The Bad Ibeji’s one hand splayed itself on the one-eyed scientist’s neck and chest. He unhooked each claw and a little blood ran out of each hole. The second hand unwrapped itself from the scientist’s waist, leaving a welt. I shook and screamed into the gag and kicked against the shackles but the only thing free was my nose to huff. The Bad Ibeji pulled his head off the twin’s shoulder and one eye popped open. The head, a lump upon a lump, upon a lump, with warts, and veins, and huge swellings on the right cheek with a little thing flapping like a finger. His mouth, squeezed at the corners, flopped open, and his body jerked and sagged like kneaded flour being slapped. From the mouth came a gurgle like from a baby. The Bad Ibeji left the scientist’s shoulder and slithered on my belly and up to my chest, smelling of arm funk and shit of the sick. The other scientist grabbed my head with both sides and held it stiff. I struggled and struggled, shaking, trying to nod, trying to kick, trying to scream, but all I could do was blink and breathe.

I heard you have a date with Oliver, and from the looks of it, you definitely do. You’re sweating like a whore in church!” Rob says as soon as he sees me. I punch him in the shoulder. “No I’m not! Oh God, am I?” I head toward the bathroom and look at myself, realizing that he was exaggerating. But, damn. I am nervous. “Why am I so nervous about this? And where is Meep?” “She’s in the shower, and you’re nervous because this is your first date together. I mean, real date. Shenanigans don’t count.” He raises a blonde eyebrow and laughs when I glare at him. “I need a drink,” I announce, heading to the kitchen. “No, you don’t. You need to sit and relax and be still. You’re going to give me a heart attack!” “Stop being a pest,” I mutter, plopping down on the couch. “Okay, but on your date, do not sit like that. Nothing is more gross than a careless sitter in a dress.” My eyes widen, and I cross my legs, sitting upright. “Damn you. Maybe I should have worn jeans.” Robert laughs, throwing his head back. He looks so much like Mia when he does that. “I was joking! Geez, you really are nervous.” “Who’s nervous?” Mia asks, walking over to us. “Jitterbug over here is acting like a virgin going to prom,” Rob says, earning a laugh from me, and a look from Mia. “Way to lay it all out there,” I say. “She looks fine,” Mia says walking over to me. “It’s just Bean.” “Exactly. It’s just Bean . . . do I look okay?” Mia gives me a once-over and nods. “You look beautiful, like you do every other day, when you wear make-up and brush your hair and dress up.” “Meaning not like every other day?” “Well, you have to save beauty for special occasions, Chicken.” “Bitch,” I say, laughing until the knock on the door swallows my smile. “Ohh here he comes,” Rob starts singing like he was singing Man Eater, and I want to crawl into a hole and die. Mia swings the door open and whistles loudly. “Looks like somebody wants to get laid tonight,” she announces. And this time, for real, I want to crawl into a hole and die. I can feel my face burning as I walk to the door and tell Mia and Robert to shut up. Oliver is wearing dark jeans, black shoes, a gray button-down, and a fedora on his head. It’s simple and hot, and it matches the gray dress I’m wearing, so I have to laugh. “It’s like they’re meant to be!” Rob states loudly. “They match! This is too fucking cute! Mia! Get the camera!” “I hate you.” I say, looking at him. “I hate you.” I say, turning to Mia’s face, red from laughing. “I don’t hate you . . . yet.” I say, turning to Oliver, who gives me a slow, cocky half grin that makes me melt a little. “Please have her home by midnight, and make sure she lays off the vodka,” As Mia starts rattling off her list, she stops to look at my blushing face and bursts out laughing. “Awww . . . I’m sorry, Elle, this is so cute though. You haven’t been this nervous since you lost your virginity to Hunter Grayson.” She stops laughing and turns to Oliver with a serious face. “All jokes aside, if you hurt her again, I will fucking murder you, and I’m not talking about a nice quiet murder, I’m talking dick cut off, internal organs everywhere kind of murder. So please, be mindful of that.

Life beckoned to me in the form of a blinding white light, coaxing me to come near it and grasp it. To live again. To exist again among the living. But I didn't want to. Not anymore. Death was a better choice. But Death did not want me. Yet. There was only one thing to do, then. I must escape Life. I turned away from the light, but it followed me. I ran, as fast as I can, but it was still behind me. I couldn’t lose it, however hard I tried. It was gaining on me! Out of breath, I turned into a dark alley and found myself in a barren stretch of land. I dropped to the ground as the light came into sight. And I knew that to avoid it, there was nothing else to do…but go underground. With my bare hands, I scratched and scraped and clawed on the ground, and my fingernails cracked, and my hands became bloodied. But I didn't stop. I must not stop. I must not let the light get me. So, I scratched and clawed and scraped the soil. Tears and perspiration mingled on my face, dripping down to the hole I was digging. “Still, I went on, and on, and on, focused on my task. Finally, a hole big enough appeared out of my efforts. Coughing, short of breath, I crawled inside, worming my way in. I curled up my body. I pulled my knees to my chest, folded my arms around them, and wriggled myself in, until I was deeply and comfortably nestled in. No vacant spaces, no empty void. Just me and the hole. I was a perfect fit for the dark pit I created for myself. Gradually, my breathing returned to normal, my heart softly beating. Gratefully, I closed my eyes, allowing the darkness to engulf me wholly, shielding me from the light called Life.

The wood floor is- so splintery on my flip-flops like nails are sticking up, poking me and crap, the boards are all cracked and you can see down one story, or more at times. Besides, some floorboards are missing altogether; I feel like I could go through the floor at any time. (Room 202) There is no light coming anywhere but her light she is giving off, looking over everything in its interiority, I see that there are boards over the old glass smashed glass window panes; not even the smallest glimmer or flicker of a star or moonlight at this point to guide me, nothing to show the way other than spun web cover over everything, even the hole that should not be cover seemed roached out, look at all the spiders crawling all down me, I don’t go in there I was thinking. I went at night so no one would find me. Look even going down the hall the lockers start to bang themselves like humpers of the past. I could see kissing here doing that too. Like I could see it all in my mind too, like they all did when the kids slammed their looker in these unhallowed halls, look now there are papers everywhere, just left behind like love notes of the past, I want to read yet it has nothing there to be said, I could get some of it, yet not all… I don’t have anything wrong with me, I can’t see, should I take it with me? I do- (It was tucked in her underwire right strap, her outfit when cut off to be laid out for viewing.) -It was Nevaeh and Chiaz’s first love note. (Now) You can foresee what's going to happen… can’t you- I sure did not in the past nor do I know, yet I do at times. It’s a new day, she sat back- crap let's do it a new way today- damn (‘Like- I want to choke down my rabbit,’) it works for me it's well to get that right, or so Jenny said. Yet I was feeling more than that below, and so was she, in my mouth. ‘If you are going through hell keep on going don’t slow down, if you are scared don’t show it…!’ My love was singing to be willing to do this, yet you can’t hear that and if you do, you’ll hear Maggie coming out. (Back at the old school) The hollowing sound of her voices in my face, its blows’ a-crossed me and spooks me out, it is so haunted within these falling walls, yet see is not scaring me at this point, I feel somewhat safe. As well as the wind howling as my thought makes, makes me think of who she maybe thinks I am. I see the hand-covered handrails going up past the old Gym and girl’s locker room, looking into the showers it’s like- I could see bare-ass naked girls and the steam in the air. With the sounds of: ‘O-op-e-s-y- don’t drop the soap!’ All along with the sounds of girls giggling, hell- I don’t want to know what’s going on. Water running, just guessing like them… I had the bad thoughts and photos running in my little-wicked mind. Like the sands of time… not fading all away or turning all too black and write. Up till now the water and sound or the girls are from the past, or so I think and have been long gone, for them to be real girls, it was abandoned for years, like what is this crap…? Like the snapping of a towel, my head spun around, as the little girl pulled me to the next room by her resenting glow, In the locker part of the room- I see all the old desked linked together, she's sitting there proverb her story to me, her hair braids are freaking cute to me; like no girl does that anymore. Yet who are these girls, I think- I know, yet they don’t, see me. They don’t even think I see them all up in it. I heard these stories and believe it yet; I don’t believe it seeing it now unfolding in front of me. There is some random b*tch putting the redhead face in the capper, with the sound of the flush! I am good, she said.

BRANDON LOOKS AT THE PICS! Right then all I wanted to do was dig a really deep hole right next to my desk, CRAWL into it, and DIE!!

Turning her loose made us both feel good. We didn’t worry at all about how she would make out. Snakes can crawl into holes and take good care of themselves. With no regrets, we let her go. And go she did. In a flash she disappeared, fluttering into the underbrush like a striped hair ribbon. “Well, that’s the end of that,” Greta said. “Yep,” I agreed. Little did we know that it was only the beginning. Two days later, Russell knocked on Greta’s door and asked for his snake back. Since I wasn’t there at the time, Greta had to handle the situation by herself. What she told me about their conversation really annoyed me. “He said it was his snake, and he never intended to give it to us, only I had grabbed it away from him.” “Then why did he bring it here?” I asked. “He said he wanted to show it to us.” “Scare us with it is more like it. Well, it serves him right. He must have been surprised when we didn’t scare and you plucked it out of his hands.” We both laughed at the memory of that. “Anyway, when I told him that we didn’t have it, he was furious. You should have seen his face.” “Good! Did you tell him that he was dumb to think the snake was blind?” “No. He was mad enough.

You’re gorge,” Dwayne announced as he pulled out fabric swatches and laid them next to the invitations and pictures of wedding cakes he’d torn from magazines. “Both you and Essie are so hawt, if I liked vaginas I’d be on you like white on rice.” “What’s a bagina?” Daniel asked, pointing a chubby finger at the now paler than usual Vamp. “Ohhhh, um…well, a bagina is a dance done by extinct tribes of Pygmy Goat Shifters,” Dwayne stuttered as I reluctantly gave him a chance to crawl out of the body part hole. “If we say bagina too many times the goats will magically appear and eat all the cookies that Granny made—not to mention they smell like rotting fish—so we really don’t want to use that term.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' I've revised this saying to make it more accurate: 'What doesn't kill you puts you in a whole lot of pain and makes you cry a lot and want to crawl in a hole forever and live with rodents.