Rip Relationship Quotes

We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!

But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete.

Why?' He asked. 'Why what?' What could I say? Noah, despite you being an asshole, or maybe because of it, I'd like to rip off your clothes and have your babies. Don't tell.

There is no perfect ending to a relationship. No magic formula. Just a silent scream as they rip your fucking heart out.

i have never understood. will probably never understand. the white mans lust to eat the world. to eat the universe. (mars is next) why he was born with such a rabid starvation. why he feigns for power like crack rock. doing everything. and anything. to have it. no matter how deranged. why he is in so much pain he needs to rip the roots of happiness from the earth and burn them into his smile. what happened in his relationship with our mother. that he needs to set a person on fire. watch them burn. to feel powerful. not every white man is born this way, but, it stands to remain there are many who are.

There is a specific feeling that comes about during the dying embers of a relationship. Different from the Monday morning quarrels before work because you two are tired, different from the “I’m not going to talk to you for a while because I am mad at you” silences. Breaks ups happen instantly, yet the process occurs over a gradual period of time, with tear by tear until what was once whole, rips into two. Breakups are the disappointment we feel when we wanted our lover to finish the story with an exclamation mark, but instead are left with a question mark.

Since you came back from summer break, our entire relationship is about fooling around. We never talk anymore, and I'm sick of feeling guilty for not ripping my clothes off and spreading my legs to prove I love you.

Because I was dying. 　　And Warner could’ve let me die. He was angry and hurt and had every reason to be bitter. I’d just ripped his heart out; I’d let him believe something would come of our relationship. I let him confess the depth of his feelings to me; I let him touch me in ways even Adam hadn't. I didn't ask him to stop. 　　Every inch of me was saying yes. 　　And then I took it all back. Because I was scared, and confused, and conflicted. Because of Adam. 　　Warner told me he loved me, and in return I insulted him and lied to him and yelled at him and pushed him away. And when he had the chance to stand back and watch me die, he didn’t. 　　He found a way to save my life. 　　With no demands. No expectations. Believing full well that I was in love with someone else, and that saving my life meant making me whole again only to give me back to another guy. 　　And right now, I can’t say I know what Adam would do if I were dying in front of him. I’m not sure if he would save my life. And that uncertainty alone makes me certain that something wasn't right between us.

Connections only caused a ripping pain no one deserved.

It happens the world over - we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One, we've got to be Number One or nothing! We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we've got to be Number One, and if we can't make it, we'll rip and tear at the loved one till we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there.

Your ability to make me feel like I was less than I was, took awhile to recover from. But after ripping my own self worth to shreds for so long, I realized that I wasn't less just because I was more than your inexperienced hands could handle.

fucker, I know I just pissed all over your heart and ripped our eight year relationship to shreds, but can you put my Victoria's Secret underwear down?

What, no panty ripping today?" I tease. "What is it with you and panties anyway? What's your beef with them?" He lifts his head, grinning at me. "It's a love/hate relationship, baby. I love how they look on you. Hate that they're blocking my access." I giggle.

I love being aroused. I love how that feeling overcomes me, as I look at a man’s erect cock, as I feel his hands ripping my clothes from my body, as the air caresses my naked skin, and how I feel like I’m blossoming like a flower.

A real man, the kind of man a woman wants to give her life to, is one who will respect her dignity, who will honor her like the valuable treasures she is. A real man will not attempt to rip her precious pearl from its protective shell, or persuade her with charm to give away her treasure prematurely, but he will wait patiently until she willingly gives him the prize of her heart. A real man will cherish and care for that precious prize forever.

You get what you give," we will tell his sorry, selfish ass." The Betty Lady has spoken. I detect a Bronx accent. "But," I demur, "it will make the other woman say, ´See? She IS a jealous and paranoid and pushy wife.´" The Betty Lady rips open a cell phone statement with a nail file and, without looking up at me, says, "Let me tell you something, honey. In my experience? The only thing they care about is what they see in the mirror each morning and WINNING...or their perception of winning.

I loved being near you. Even though I felt that bubble you had around you, even though I never quite knew what you were thinking, damn, did I love being near you. Somehow, I knew you would rip me apart and drown me. Somehow, I knew we wouldn’t last. It didn’t matter. You were my sun. I loved feeling you upon me, around me, between me. Even though you could only love me from a distance, I didn’t care. I never felt more warmth inside of me than when you were against me.

I forgot who I was before the (space) suit, before gravity was ripped from my vocabulary and I mastered the art of drifting

No," I said automatically, "don't do anything about Dad. You can't fix my relationship with him." "I can block or run interference." "Thanks, Jack, but I don't need blocking, and I really don't need any more interference." He looked annoyed. "Well, why did you waste all that time complaining to me if you didn't want me to do something about it?" "I don't want you to fix my problems. I just wanted you to listen." "Hang it all, Haven, talk to a girlfriend if all you want is a pair of ears. Guys hate it when you give us a problem and then don't let us do something about it. It makes us feel bad. And then the only way to make ourselves feel better is to rip a phone book in two or blow something up. So let's get this straight — I'm not a good listener. I'm a guy." "Yes you are." I stood and smiled. "Want to buy me a drink at an after work bar?" "Now you're talking," my brother said, and we left the office.

No longer married, suddenly I was widowed. From Latin, the name means "emptied." Far worse; it felt like being torn in half, ripped apart from the single functioning organism that had been our family, our lives. Shattered, the word kept recurring; the whole pattern shattered, just as the mountain rocks had shattered his body.

Grief is not neat. Pain is not dignified. Both are ugly, visceral things. They rip holes through you and burst forth when they see fit. They are constant, controlling companions, and if they don’t destroy you or your relationships with others, they certainly go a long way to damaging you, disfiguring you internally and altering your existence so much so that when you are lucid enough to look at yourself, at your life, you are astounded (and often disgusted) by what you find staring back at you.

It's like a supersition, you know -- if I don't put that much value on a relationship, maybe it won't be ripped out from under my feet.

I clenched my jaw with determination. “It won’t work, Angel. I have to sing about love, relationships, and sex. You know, bullshit like that. A song about my fucking heart being ripped to shreds because my mother is dying isn’t going to make an album, least of all a single.

The thought of separating from Jessica was like having his guts ripped out, but these days being married to Jessica was like having his guts ripped out. Whatever way you looked at it: guts ripped out.

The ceremonial oat tour." She reaches in the shopping bag and takes out the milk bar with almonds, ripping it open. "It must be so hard for guys in relationships - to have just one girlfriend completely devoted to taking care of all your whole-grain needs. I can see how at the first opportunity you'd just have to get out there and - sow.

In that seminar I attended at eighteen, the speaker asked, “What percentage of shared responsibility do you have in making a relationship work?” I was a teenager, so wise in the ways of true love. Of course I had all the answers. “Fifty/fifty!” I blurted out. It was so obvious; both people must be willing to share the responsibility evenly or someone’s getting ripped off. “Fifty-one/forty-nine,” yelled someone else, arguing that you’d have to be willing to do more than the other person. Aren’t relationships built on self-sacrifice and generosity? “Eighty/twenty,” yelled another. The instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 on the paper in big black letters. “You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” he said. “Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.” Whoa. This wasn’t what I was expecting! But I quickly understood how this concept could transform every area of my life. If I always took 100 percent responsibility for everything I experienced—completely owning all of my choices and all the ways I responded to whatever happened to me—I held the power. Everything was up to me. I was responsible for everything I did, didn’t do, or how I responded to what was done to me.

He had the tool to break down the walls that imprisoned his people. He had the tool to rip away the veil to the Holy of Holies so that his flock could come before the Lord and be cleansed, made whole, transformed, and have a personal, loving relationship with their creator. That very tool san on Hannah's bookshelf right now, gathering dust until Sunday morning. Her Savior was there, waiting to speak to her and show her the way home again, the way back to love. YOUR WORD IS LIFE! Why didn't more people understand that?

Every event in life — the rejections, the relationships, all the embarrassing things you do will lead you to the person you are destined to be with. You may want to change certain things about your past, but everything has been just another chapter in your book of life. If you don’t believe me, buy a book — any book — and rip out an entire chapter — any chapter — and read it. Now, get a full copy of the same book and read it again. Odds are you’ll find that chapter pieced everything together the way it was supposed to be.

Darling, I would follow you through the blackest midnight—just not without my trousers!

i want to rip out my heart before you get to it first.

It’s very easy to diagnose a borderline. They screw you over, rip you off, commit whatever transgression, and then they blame you for it.

When people split up, it always ricocheted like a fucking bullet, ripping through everyone who happened to be close by.

Maybe relationships are supposed to end with tears or screams. Maybe they are supposed to conclude with two people saying everything they never said or ripping into each other in a way that can't be undone.

I lost him completely and without warning. Ripped from my life like a breath snatched from my soul. And after all this time, I plead with myself to breathe in... and I pray to the Universe to give back what it took away.

I recognized Meg’s swirly handwriting and crooked my index finger into the side of the envelope to rip it open. There was no letter. Just a picture. A picture of Meg holding a picture of me. The word HOME echoed through my body like a rifle shot.

Your ability to make me feel like I was less than I was took a while to recover from. But after ripping my own self worth to shreds for so long, I realized that I wasn't less just because I was more than your inexperienced hands could handle... and that is your loss.

I used to think that when a child was born, a parent made a promise to stay with him. Or her. But if there's a promise, it can be broken. That first Matthew Trewhella broke his promises. I wonder if he ever forgot them, or did the torn edges of his promises hurt him to the end of his life? When someone goes away from you suddenly, without warning, that's what it's like. A rip, a torn edge inside you. I have a torn edge in me, and Dad has a torn edge in him. I'm not sure if those edges will still fit together by the time I find him.

Because of our intensified relationship, we get much love and delight from them in life. And we grieve very deeply for them when they die. Because of the unique enhancement they provide in our lives, they become a treasured part of us forever. But it is important to keep in mind that, when a pet’s life ends, more dies than just a beloved companion animal. Since we subconsciously make them into living symbols of our own innocence and purest feelings, it can feel as if a treasured secret part of each of us also dies—as if a giant hole has been ripped out of ourselves.

I make so many plans but fail at follow-through. Gemini mind once a mat for you to wipe your feet. I’d beg for it. I’d plead 'Here! I’m here waiting for you to be the one. Take my heart, my life, my air: rip them to shreds and hand them back.No need to worry. I have enough superglue and tears to keep me busy for months...

And why can't I have an ignore button like my phone? As I hit it, his calls disappear from the screen and the ringing stops. But the tingles are still at my fingertips, as if he sent them through the phone to grab me. Shoving it in my purse-the pockets on skinny jeans must just be for show 'cause nothing else is fitting in there-I smile at Mark. Ah, Mark. The blue-eyed, blond-haired, all-American quarterback. Who knew he had a crush on me all these years? Not Emma McIntosh, that's for dang sure. And not Chloe. Which is weird, because Chloe was a collector of this kind of information. Maybe it's not true. Maybe Mark's only interested in me because Galen was-who wouldn't want to date the girl who dated the hottest guy in school? But that's just fine with me. Mark is...well, Mark isn't as fantabulous as I always imagined he would be. Still, he's good-looking, a star quarterback, and he's not trying to hook me up with his brother. So why am I not excited? The question must be all over my face because Mark's got his eyebrow raised. Not in a judgmental arch, more like an arch of expectation. If he's waiting for an explanation, his puny human lungs can't hold their breath long enough for an answer. Aside from not being his business, I can't exactly explain the details of my relationship with Galen-fake or otherwise. The truth is, I don't know where we can go from here. He ripped holes in my pride like buckshot. And did I mention he broke my heart? He's not just a crush. Not just a physical attraction, someone who can make me forget my own name by pretending to kiss me. Not just a teacher or a snobby fish with Royal blood. Sure, he's all of those things. But he's more than that. He's who I want. Possibly forever.

He was the hunter of my soul, lying in wait - silently and motionless. Coaxing me out of hiding, Enticing me with love, Dangling hope in my face. Pulling me in, drawing me close. I gave in and walked into his trap. He did a good job too, tearing me apart and ripping my heart out. He was the hunter and I, the game. How could I forget that a hunter's job is to kill?

Nick grinned, swooping in for another kiss and then leaning back and scruffing his hair up. “Harriet Manners, I’m about to give you six stamps. Then I’m going to write something on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope with your address on it.” “OK …” “Then I’m going to put the envelope on the floor and spin us as fast as I can. As soon as either of us manage to stick a stamp on it, I’m going to race to the postbox and post it unless you can catch me first. If you win, you can read it.” Nick was obviously faster than me, but he didn’t know where the nearest postbox was. “Deal,” I agreed, yawning and rubbing my eyes. “But why six stamps?” “Just wait and see.” A few seconds later, I understood. As we spun in circles with our hands stretched out, one of my stamps got stuck to the ground at least a metre away from the envelope. Another ended up on a daisy. A third somehow got stuck to the roundabout. One of Nick’s ended up on his nose. And every time we both missed, we laughed harder and harder and our kisses got dizzier and dizzier until the whole world was a giggling, kissing, spinning blur. Finally, when we both had one stamp left, I stopped giggling. I had to win this. So I swallowed, wiped my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then I reached out my hand. “Too late!” Nick yelled as I opened my eyes again. “Got it, Manners!” And he jumped off the still-spinning roundabout with the envelope held high over his head. So I promptly leapt off too. Straight into a bush. Thanks to a destabilised vestibular system – which is the upper portion of the inner ear – the ground wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Nick, in the meantime, had ended up flat on his back on the grass next to me. With a small shout I leant down and kissed him hard on the lips. “HA!” I shouted, grabbing the envelope off him and trying to rip it open. “I don’t think so,” he grinned, jumping up and wrapping one arm round my waist while he retrieved it again. Then he started running in a zigzag towards the postbox. A few seconds later, I wobbled after him. And we stumbled wonkily down the road, giggling and pulling at each other’s T-shirts and hanging on to tree trunks and kissing as we each fought for the prize. Finally, he picked me up and, without any effort, popped me on top of a high wall. Like Humpty Dumpty. Or some kind of really unathletic cat. “Hey!” I shouted as he whipped the envelope out of my hands and started sprinting towards the postbox at the bottom of the road. “That’s not fair!” “Course it is,” he shouted back. “All’s fair in love and war.” And Nick kissed the envelope then put it in the postbox with a flourish. I had to wait three days. Three days of lingering by the front door. Three days of lifting up the doormat, just in case it had accidentally slipped under there. Finally, the letter arrived: crumpled and stained with grass. Ha. Told you I was faster. LBxx

There were things hiding inside of her I wasn’t equipped to see and this collapse ripped her open to me. I searched her cavities for symbols that would betray her true nature, but found nothing I could read, just a vast absence containing her poverty of morals. I should’ve known, the need for my presence in her life was never love, only a sluice of goodness she would let flood the gulley of her body when she needed to appear human.

As spouses, we play a big role in the development of each other's self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. An entire personality can be destroyed and a marriage ripped apart over the course of just months. It's important that husbands and wives take this subject seriously and learn to build each other up through the simple concepts of dating. It's critical that the older we get, the younger we feel. As the years pass, our attitudes towards each other and our relationships should become more positive and our lives more meaningful.

Black women who define ourselves and our goals beyond the sphere of a sexual relationship can bring to any endeavor the realized focus of completed and therefore empowered individuals. Black women and Black men who recognize that the development of their particular strengths and interests does not diminish the other do not need to diffuse their energies fighting for control over each other. We can focus our attentions against the real economic, political, and social forces at the heart of this society which are ripping us and our children and our worlds apart.

Of course I thought I was in love. But while I don’t know much, I do know that if Adam really loved me, he wouldn’t have treated me the way he did today. He wouldn’t prefer that I was dead. I know this, because I’ve seen proof of his opposite. Because I was dying. And Warner could’ve let me die. He was angry and hurt and had every reason to be bitter. I’d just ripped his heart out; I’d let him believe something would come of our relationship. I let him confess the depth of his feelings to me; I let him touch me in ways even Adam hadn’t. I didn’t ask him to stop. Every inch of me was saying yes. And then I took it all back. Because I was scared, and confused, and conflicted. Because of Adam.

Dad takes a step back, one hand still on my shoulder, and reaches into his pocket. He draws out a little blue capsule, and I feel every molecule in my body screaming to run. Dad must catch the panic in my eyes - he squeezes my shoulder and holds out the capsule. "Cas, it's fine. It's going to be fine. This is just in case." Just in case. Just in case the worst happens. The ship falls. Durga fails, I fail, and the knowledge I carry as a Reckoner trainer must be disposed of. That information can't fall into the wrong hands, into the hands of people who will do anything to take down our beasts. So this little capsule holds the pill that will kill me if it comes to that. "It's waterproof," Dad continues, pressing it into my hand. "The pocket on the collar of your wetsuit, keep it there. It has to stay with you at all times." It won't happen on this voyage. It's such a basic mission, gift-wrapped to be easy enough for me to handle on my own. But even holding the pill fills me with revulsion. On all my training voyages, I've never had to carry one of these capsules. That burden only goes to full-time trainers. "Cas." Dad tilts my chin up, ripping my gaze from the pull. "You were born to do this. I promise you, you'll forget you even have it." I suppose he ought to know - he's been carrying one for two decades. It's just a right of passage, I tell myself, and throw my arms around his neck once more.

Comparing marriage to football is no insult. I come from the South where football is sacred. I would never belittle marriage by saying it is like soccer, bowling, or playing bridge, never. Those images would never work, only football is passionate enough to be compared to marriage. In other sports, players walk onto the field, in football they run onto the field, in high school ripping through some paper, in college (for those who are fortunate enough) they touch the rock and run down the hill onto the field in the middle of the band. In other sports, fans cheer, in football they scream. In other sports, players ‘high five’, in football they chest, smash shoulder pads, and pat your rear. Football is a passionate sport, and marriage is about passion. In football, two teams send players onto the field to determine which athletes will win and which will lose, in marriage two families send their representatives forward to see which family will survive and which family will be lost into oblivion with their traditions, patterns, and values lost and forgotten. Preparing for this struggle for survival, the bride and groom are each set up. Each has been led to believe that their family’s patterns are all ‘normal,’ and anyone who differs is dense, naïve, or stupid because, no matter what the issue, the way their family has always done it is the ‘right’ way. For the premarital bride and groom in their twenties, as soon as they say, “I do,” these ‘right’ ways of doing things are about to collide like two three hundred and fifty pound linemen at the hiking of the ball. From “I do” forward, if not before, every decision, every action, every goal will be like the line of scrimmage. Where will the family patterns collide? In the kitchen. Here the new couple will be faced with the difficult decision of “Where do the cereal bowls go?” Likely, one family’s is high, and the others is low. Where will they go now? In the bathroom. The bathroom is a battleground unmatched in the potential conflicts. Will the toilet paper roll over the top or underneath? Will the acceptable residing position for the lid be up or down? And, of course, what about the toothpaste? Squeeze it from the middle or the end? But the skirmishes don’t stop in the rooms of the house, they are not only locational they are seasonal. The classic battles come home for the holidays. Thanksgiving. Which family will they spend the noon meal with and which family, if close enough, will have to wait until the nighttime meal, or just dessert if at all? Christmas. Whose home will they visit first, if at all? How much money will they spend on gifts for his family? for hers? Then comes for many couples an even bigger challenge – children of their own! At the wedding, many couples take two candles and light just one often extinguishing their candle as a sign of devotion. The image is Biblical. The Bible is quoted a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. What few prepare them for is the upcoming struggle, the conflict over the unanswered question: the two shall become one, but which one? Two families, two patterns, two ways of doing things, which family’s patterns will survive to play another day, in another generation, and which will be lost forever? Let the games begin.

The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper’s swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen’s nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn; the tilt of a guttering and a cat’s progress along it as he slips into the same window; the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared beyond the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering; the rips in the fish net and the three old men seated on the dock mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat of the usurper, who some say was the queen’s illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.

―The thing about memory is that you can feel it eroding slowly, being stolen away from you by time. It starts with the way you stop hearing his voice in your head. Then it's the color of the shirt he wore last Christmas. Before you know it, your memories have become fragmented, as if the small details were grains of sand blown away by the wind. I should be grateful that I'm starting to remember you less. Instead, I felt lonely. Pieces of you that I once held dear are being ripped apart into tiny shreds of information my brain thinks I can afford to forget. I can feel my heart fighting. It loves the feel of you though for the most part, you hurt. I looked for you in places where I knew I would never find you, in faces I knew I would never recognize. I looked for you hoping that through the sheer force of my will I would find your eyes staring back. But that's the thing about memory - you can feel it eroding slowly, being stolen away from you by time. I want to remember you. But I'm no longer entirely sure I really remember you. It kills me. Have you started remembering me less too?

Rosie and Johnny's relationship was being ripped to shreds, with the press and public pawing over the pieces like wild dogs. The emotional chasm between Dominic and Pet had been torn even wider. Apparently, Sylvie had been wasting time, money, and ingredients for months, constantly defending this woman to Jay. And someone intimately connected to the Starlight Circus had just called her décor "kitsch." "Penny," she said very calmly, with a smile just as vague, just as airy, and just as malicious, "get the fuck out of my home." Penny tossed her head---and froze as Mabel walked toward her, hips swinging, also smiling. That smile had more eerie impact than every lighting effect in the Dark Forest combined. The intern took a step back, but halted in momentary confusion when Mabel offered her the lollipop. She took the candy skull automatically, and then shrieked as Mabel---tiny, deceptively delicate Mabel---made a blur of a movement with her foot and Penny tumbled across her shoulders. Whistling, Mabel walked toward the back door and out into the alley, wearing Penny around her neck like a scarf. Through the window, Sylvie watched as her assistant calmly threw the intern into the dumpster. As a stream of profanity drifted from the piles of rubbish--most of which, incidentally, was all the ingredients Penny had purposely wasted--Mabel returned to the kitchen. "I'll be off, then," she said, collecting her bag and coat from their hook. "Have a good night," Sylvie returned serenely. As Mabel passed her, without turning her head or altering her expression, their hands fleetingly clasped. The door swung closed, leaving Sylvie alone with Dominic in a lovely, clean kitchen, while her former intern made a third cross attempt to clamber from the trash.

The other night I had dinner with a good friend, a woman writer whom I’ve known for about ten years. Though we’ve never had a romantic relationship, I love her dearly and care about her: she’s a good person, and a talented writer, and those two qualities put her everlastingly on my list of When You Need Help, Even In The Dead Of Night, I’m On Call. Over dinner, we talked about an anguish she has been experiencing for a number of years. She’s afraid of dying alone and unloved. Some of you are nodding in understanding. A few of you are smiling. The former understand pain, the latter are assholes. Or very lucky. We’ve all dreaded that moment when we pack it in, get a fast rollback of days and nights, and realize we’re about to go down the hole never having belonged to anyone. If you’ve never felt it, you’re either an alien from far Arcturus or so insensitive your demise won’t matter. Or very lucky. Her problem is best summed up by something Theodore Sturgeon once said: “There’s no absence of love in the world, only worthy places to put it.” My friend gets involved with guys who do her in. Not all her fault. Some of it is—we’re never wholly victims, we help construct the tiger traps filled with spikes—but not all of it. She’s vulnerable. While not naïve, she is innocent. And that’s a dangerous, but laudable capacity: to wander through a world that can be very uncaring and amorally cruel, and still be astonished at the way the sunlight catches the edge of a coleus leaf. Anybody puts her down for that has to go through me first. So she keeps trying, and the ones with long teeth sense her vulnerability and they move in for the slow kill. (That’s evil: only the human predator destroys slowly, any decent hunting animal rips out the throat and feeds, and that’s that. The more I see of people, the better I like animals.)

I’m first up, love,” Arion says as he starts invading my space again. “I thought the only thing holding you back was your fear. Clearly the fear is absent if you’re willing to turn yourself over to the very darkest part of me. It’s amazing you’re in one piece, so clearly you played submissive very well, Violet. It’s because you were ready for me to save you and overcame your fear of me. Now we can be together.” When I say nothing and simply stare at him like he’s forever losing his mind more and more when we speak, he frowns like he’s genuinely perplexed. “Arion, no matter what you did, I couldn’t have endured another second of those cries. And you were at Abby’s mercy while in that state. You ripped my throat out and told me to put on some healing potion so you could sit down and watch the fight.” Apparently, I guess right, because his pupils widen marginally. “I held your hand when you finished,” he says like he’s defending himself. “So you could watch the fight.” “Vance was focused. It’s been ages since he focused. Thing of beauty while it happens,” he says as if that’s important information. I gesture between us. “That’s sort of the problem. I feel like the conduit for your feelings for them because you have heterosexual body parts with a homosexual mentality. I’m not sure I’m okay with simply being a conduit,” I carefully explain, causing his eyes to widen a little more, as several muffled sounds of amusement spring from somewhere else in the room. “I’m sorry, love, but you’ve really lost me,” Arion says very seriously, brow crinkling. “You want this to be a thing between you and me, even though Idun is returning, because you want them back. It looks like you’re getting that without me, so we can be friends,” I suggest, completely rambling. I don’t think I’m explaining this very well, since they’re all muffling laughter down the hall. Even Vance makes a choked sound of amusement. Or they’re just really immature about these things… That’s definitely possible. Arion scrubs a hand over his face, as someone struggles to cover a surprise laugh with a cough. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It’s inappropriate to do with an audience,” I babble. “But you’re really intense. And I’ve just survived an apocalyptic wolf storm with your mostly naked beta, whose threads are still in my bra because one set of clothes ended up being enough.” The look of frustrated confusion on his face doubles. “I could use a small break before we discuss curses, some really confusing relationship statuses, and the somewhat terrifying woman you’ve all loved rising very soon. And those wolves stole my oranges, so I need to go back and get all of them.” “I’ve already returned them to your cellar,” Emit says from somewhere behind Arion. “Then I need to go start using them while they’re useable,” I say as I quickly disentangle myself from Arion and attempt to escape. “I’ll return the shirt.” “Keep it,” he says quietly from behind me, as I finally take in the other three all standing somewhat close together, smirking at me. “I’ll drive you home,” Damien says with a slow grin. “I’m not talking to you, and if you’re a smart man, you’ll figure out why,” I state firmly. “Only when you figure it out will we discuss it.” “I’ll take you—” “I don’t want to talk to you right now, because I need to get my cool back,” I tell Emit, whose eyes immediately flick away, as his jaw tics. He’s had multiple opportunities to explain to me why he told Damien I was a monster, and yet didn’t even bother telling me what I was. All this time, I’ve been patiently waiting, refusing to get too angry. Now…I’m getting sort of freaking angry, because he still hasn’t said one word about it. “Guess that just leaves me,” Vance says as he puts his hand at the small of my back and starts guiding me out.

I stroke a finger over my own top button, undo it, then let my hand drop with an exaggerated sigh. "It's not quite the same," I declare, "ripping my own clothes off.

What’s wrong with you?” John asks suspiciously. I give him a ‘what chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?’ look and he explains. “You just woke up.” I nod. “Walked into the kitchen.” Once again I nod, not seeing what the big deal is. “And didn’t rip apart the cabinets like a rabid squirrel looking like coffee.” I shrug at that, I didn’t even remember it. “What the fuck have you done with my best friend?

But for the Catholic, the imagination and the ability to create is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the imagination bridges both the appetites and the higher reason as well as the material and the spiritual. Without the imagination, man cannot sanctify the world. Further, without the imagination, man cannot envision unity. Instead, trapped in his own subjective understandings of the world, the man drowns in his own appetites and reasons, never seeing the beauty of all other things in the Created Order. The Protestant Reformation, therefore, did great damage not only to the unified Body of Christ—ravenously ripping it apart—but it also fundamentally changed the meaning of man, at least as man understands himself. Equally important, the Reformation, by denying the imagination as a holy function and mistrusting it as if it were from the devil, ultimately distorted and perverted man’s relationship to the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder then, Dawson believed, that this breakdown in society and this disordering of the human soul and its relationship to God led to secularism, liberalism, and, ultimately, to totalitarianism. Once the imagination is destroyed, man becomes the measure of all things, and who-ever wields the most power becomes “right.” With the imagination mocked, distorted, and ignored, man sees another only as a collection of parts, to beused and manipulated. Hence, the loss of imagination leads to the gulags, the holocaust camps, and the killing fields.

o resume: 2 It is often said—and even more often screamed at anti–gay marriage rallies outside the statehouse in Lansing—that I created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. 3 Wrong. 4 Now will I tell the story of the first man, Adam; and of the companion I fashioned for him, Steve; and of the great closeting that befell their relationship. 5 For after I created the earth, and sea, and every plant and seed and beast of the field and fowl of the air, and had the place pretty much set up, I saw that it was good; 6 But I also saw, that by way of oversight it made administrative sense to establish a new middle-managerial position. 7 So as my final act of Day Six, I formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils; and I called him Adam, to give him a leg up alphabetically. 8 And lo, I made him for my image; not in my image, but for my image; because with Creations thou never gettest a second chance to make a first impression; 9 And so in fashioning him I sought to make not only a responsible planetary caretaker, but also an attractive, likeable spokesman who in the event of environmental catastrophe could project a certain warmth. 10 To immediately assess his ability to function in my absence, I decided to change my plans; for I had intended to use Day Seven to infuse the universe with an innate sense of compassion and moral justice; but instead I left him in charge and snoozed. 11 And Adam passed my test; yea, he was by far my greatest achievement; he befriended all my creatures, and named them, and cared for them; and tended the Garden most skillfully; for he had a great eye for landscape design. 12 But I soon noticed he felt bereft in his solitude; for oft he sighed, and pined for a helpmeet; and furthermore he masturbated incessantly, until he had well-nigh besplattered paradise. 13 So one night I caused him to fall into a deep sleep; fulsomely did I roofie his nectar; and as he slept, I removed a rib, though not a load-bearing one. 14 And from this rib I fashioned a companion for him; a hunk, unburdened by excess wisdom; ripped, and cut, and hung like unto a fig tree before the harvest; 15 Yea, and a power bottom. 16 And Adam arose, and saw him, and wept for joy; and he called the man Steve; I had suggested Steven, but Adam liked to keep things informal. 17 And Adam and Steve were naked, and felt no shame; they knew each other, as often as possible; truly their loins were a wonderland. 18 And they were happy, having not yet eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge That Your Lifestyle Is Sinful.

You should not have to rip yourself into pieces to keep others whole.

Being an arrogant jerk . Learning to be a master manipulator of you. Thinking I knew you like a book so I could become a master manipulator. Ripping open all our wedding cards without recording the names and dollar amounts given so we could send proper thank you cards. Never helping you send out those Thank You cards. Not helping much around the house. Treating you as a sex object . Putting my mother first in our relationship more times than I can possibly remember . Thinking our problems were because

So what is slavery? I've already begun to suggest an answer in the last chapter. Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all social relationships that make one a human being. Another way to put this is that the slave is, in a very real sense, dead.

Your brokenness will strengthen you. Every fiber of you! It doesn’t seem so, especially in the currents of being ripped apart, but in the mending, we are made more durable, stronger.

His father’s face hardens and he looks at me. Something in his face changes, but it’s gone before I could point out what exactly it was. “And who is this?” “She-“ Alex pulls me to him and backs away, ”-is none of your business.” We start to walk but his father grabs my upper arm and stops me in place. I recoiled at his touch. Alex steps forward, his face furious as he rips his father’s hand off my arm, “Don’t you dare touch her-“ Alex hisses hatefully at him,”- don’t you fucking dare.

The crude communal myth about black men is that we are in some manner unavailable to black women—either jailed, dead, gay, or married to white women. A corollary myth posits a direct and negative relationship between success and black culture. Before we actually had one, we could not imagine a black president who loved being black. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama describes his first kiss with the woman who would become his wife as tasting “of chocolate.” The line sounds ripped from Essence magazine. That’s the point.

...Kellen, it’s all just trial and error and making up your mind to live with a shitload of errors.” “Thank you for ripping the romanticism right out of love and crushing it,” Kellen said dryly. “Well, there’s good things about loving someone too. If you pick the right one, you’ll know you have someone to stand beside you no matter what life throws your way. It’s all peaks and valleys. That’s what marriage is. You’re stuck in a rotation of loving someone with all your heart and wanting to smother them with a pillow. It gets better when you’re older because you’re too tired to start over, plus prison isn’t a good place for a woman in her seventies.” Kellen smiled at Trulee. “I don’t know if you realize this or not, but you’re steadily talking me out of wanting to fall in love.” “Let’s deal in reality, honey. If you and Stevie have a long life together, she will eventually have the desire to smother you. Sleep with one eye open, and don’t dry your socks in the microwave like your uncle did this morning. The damn thing smells like a pickle sweltering on fresh asphalt in August. I couldn’t even rewarm my coffee in it. I’m not a good person to talk to about love right now because I’m definitely on the wanting to smother side of the rotation.” “So you’re saying my problem with having to tell Walt might be resolved by tomorrow morning after you’ve smothered him?” Kellen asked with a laugh. “Maybe by this afternoon, Walt does like to take a nap after a fishing trip.” Trulee laughed, too, and bumped Kellen with her shoulder. “Think about this, too. You won’t only want to smother Stevie, you’re gonna want to take a pillow to everyone in her family. The saying ‘you marry your in-laws’ is very true.” “Whew, that’s a sobering thought.” “You hang on to those sobering thoughts for dear life. No one is completely perfect, we all come with baggage. I’d been married to Walt a few months when I learned he enjoyed yodeling, and he wasn’t even any good at it. That was the first little bag he unpacked, the second was full of belches and farts. I started unpacking my bags, too, and one of them had my momma in it. I had her over to the house all the time because I missed her. I have only encountered Joan Sealy twice, and if Stevie unpacks her, you’d better have a pillow handy.” Kellen grinned. “Stop it.

The first time I saw you were mine, It was a late evening such as this. …and your smile was equally divine, and you've held our future in your fist. And your grip was, so overly tight, For a moment, rather crushed then held, Like a rose. When your words took flight, Fragrance fell - right beside my bed. It bled out. Like all things forsaken, With a knife, like everything so dear - At once ripped. Like the vows we've taken, Forgotten, began to disappear. Disillusioned. Isn't it so funny? Illusions take most space in our hearts. Your smile - it's like milk and honey, And poetry... Poetry is art.

Sky looks exactly like the sea And feels like poetry in tears Soil wet, with all that blue and green Spaces so full of in between I drop the weight and light it feels Blurred lines and boarders Disappear And these high hopes And Stretched out wings Mean , I surrender into Thee I walk through glory of your arch Aspiring to leave my mark I'm ready to forsake my feet That ever stumbled in the dark. Look at me, I'm here! - I scream, Feels like being ripped apart.

There are signs, however, that a good time was had all last night. Jo might have found herself caught in the middle of a love triangle, but she clearly didn't mind staying around when she thought that one of the angles had been dispensed with. The remains of dinner still grace the table---dirty dishes, rumpled napkins, a champagne flute bearing a lipstick mark. There's even one of the Chocolate Heaven goodies left in the box---which is absolute sacrilege in my book, so I pop it in my mouth and enjoy the brief lift it gives me. I huff unhappily to myself. If they left chocolate uneaten, that must be because they couldn't wait to get down to it. Two of the red cushions from the sofa are on the floor, which shows a certain carelessness that Marcus doesn't normally exhibit. They're scattered on the white, fluffy sheepskin rug, which should immediately make me suspicious---and it does. I walk through to the bedroom and, of course, it isn't looking quite as pristine as it did yesterday. Both sides of the bed are disheveled and I think that tells me just one thing. But, if I needed confirmation, there's a bottle of champagne and two more flutes by the side of the bed. It seems that Marcus didn't sleep alone. Heavy of heart and footstep, I trail back through to the kitchen. More devastation faces me. Marcus had made no attempt to clear up. The dishes haven't been put into the dishwasher and the congealed remnants of last night's Moroccan chicken with olives and saffron-scented mash still stand in their respective saucepans on the cooker. Tipping the contents of one pan into the other, I then pick up a serving spoon and carry them both through the bedroom. I slide open the wardrobe doors and the sight of Marcus's neatly organized rows of shirts and shoes greet me. Balancing the pan rather precariously on my hip, I dip the serving spoon into the chicken and mashed potatoes and scoop up as much as I can. Opening the pocket of Marcus's favorite Hugo Boss suit, I deposit the cold mash into it. To give the man credit where credit is due, his mash is very light and fluffy. I move along the row, garnishing each of his suits with some of his gourmet dish, and when I've done all of them, find that I still have some food remaining. Seems as if the lovers didn't have much of an appetite, after all. I move onto Marcus's shoes---rows and rows of lovely designer footwear---casual at one end, smart at the other. He has a shoe collection that far surpasses mine. Ted Baker, Paul Smith, Prada, Miu Miu, Tod's... I slot a full spoon delicately into each one, pressing it down into the toe area for maximum impact. I take the saucepan back into the kitchen and return it to the hob. With the way I'm feeling, Marcus is very lucky that I don't just burn his flat down. Instead, I open the freezer. My boyfriend---ex-boyfriend---has a love of seafood. (And other women, of course.) I take out a bag of frozen tiger prawns and rip it open. In the living room, I remove the cushions from the sofa and gently but firmly push a couple of handfuls of the prawns down the back. Through to the bedroom and I lift the mattress on Marcus's lovely leather bed and slip the remaining prawns beneath it, pressing them as flat as I can. In a couple of days, they should smell quite interesting. As my pièce de résistance, I go back to the kitchen and take the half-finished bottle of red wine---the one that I didn't even get a sniff at---and pour it all over Marcus's white, fluffy rug. I place my key in the middle of the spreading stain. Then I take out my lipstick, a nice red one called Bitter Scarlet---which is quite appropriate, if you ask me---and I write on his white leather sofa, in my best possible script: MARCUS CANNING, YOU ARE A CHEATING BASTARD.

So it was that Lavinia fired a shot against Sue’s publication. Her protest to Ward laid out the law of ownership. A writer might give a manuscript to someone else, but the possessor is not the owner. Legally, the copyright on the writing remains with writer, and upon death transfers to the writer’s heir. On the basis of Emily’s will, which left Lavinia ‘everything’, Lavinia claimed (pushing the point) that Emily had granted her exclusive rights to her papers, and though Emily gave copies of poems to others they were given simply for private reading ‘and not to pass the property in them, which is mine’. Unsurprisingly Susan challenged this. She had lost her husband to Mabel. Her friendship with Lavinia was being destroyed and now the thing she held most dear, her private relationship with Emily, was being ripped from her. She sounds a little desperate as she writes to Ward: ‘the sister is quite jealous of my treasure … All[?] [the poems and letters] I have are mine—given me by my dear Emily while living[,] so I can in honor do with them as I please.

I was walking all along just going for a walk outside after the party, I just felt good, I didn’t know if I wanted to sing, dance, and or cry; I was that happy getting to be with Marcel, so I went to my spot in the old car in the junkyard. I have to jump the face and rip my tank top or something like that yet it worth it, to see my dream car, sitting there I not a girlie girl but I love this cute thing it's sex looking like me. I found this old car at colleen’s junkyard it like right next door, I freak’n loved this old piece of crap, I even had sex with myself in the back seat, I took the old hood ornament off myself and keep it, my dad said it was off of Neveah’s dad's car, yet it was given to my mom and that why it just sitting outside for all the kids like me to rip the parts off of and sell on eBay. My stepmom hated Kristen, my real mother, so that is why the car ended up where it’s at, it was passed down yet the step-monster made sure I would never have it. My stepdad said the emblem is of a 1950 Nash that I found, little did I know it doesn’t go on that car yet, I think it’s a good fit, I was getting the car on my eighteenth birthday- I freaked up and had to die, just like me in the graveyard we both are retreating away. My stepdads had the 1950 Nash which he said was the first real sports car and it’s all steel, so I put it back on without him knowing that I did, funny maybe that's why I passed doing something like that… it was like it was meant for that car, or so he said and I did also. There is an old fender off what likes to be some old ford over there too that is rusty red, I am not sure of the year it’s too damn old for me to know. I remember right my dad said that grand-ma Nevaeh went to school in something like a 1965 Cadillac Deville convertible, yet, I don’t see that she had like nothing, I don’t know what that thing is. Like with these old cars, don't think you have a seat belt, you just cracked your head off the dash of the Nash and then they wiped it off, and sold it to some other poor ass hole.

Expression of the bygone All relationships are going to end naturally or not. It is all up to you and what you want, I choose to stay in this relationship forever, and doing it is too difficult sometimes. Just remember you have choices in life. So, what are you going to listen to? Your inner voice or the ones that are all around you and me? It is just like we all needed to get off the cyber walls and take our life’s back. The webbed walls were doing nothing but showing names with faces that label others with either good or bad stigmas, it could not be deleted, and it would follow you everywhere you went… even if you had a past that was made up by someone else it remained with you. It needed to end; it was ripping the world apart. I still believe that we all need to find real friends in person if you can in this day and age, we should not spend all of our free time looking at faces on a screen, that are deceiving what true thoughts of friendship should stand for. Please remember they are not your so-called friends… they are not your friends on there at all, if you do not or cannot talk to them in real life. Then what in the hell makes, you think you can chat with them on the webbed walls of the internet, and not real life? They are just there to look into your business, so stop being stupid. They do not care about you at all. They are stopping you from achieving your desires in your life, by talking or chatting behind your back, and how do you truly know what they are saying if you are blocked out, or who it is that is saying it. They do not care about you! So, I ask why should you care about them by having them on a profile or friends list; it is useless and completely immature?

What percentage of shared responsibility do you have in making a relationship work?” I was a teenager, so wise in the ways of true love. Of course I had all the answers. “Fifty/fifty!” I blurted out. It was so obvious. Both people must be willing to share the responsibility evenly or someone’s getting ripped off. “Fifty-one/forty-nine,” yelled someone else, arguing that you’d have to be willing to do more than the other person. Aren’t relationships built on self-sacrifice and generosity? “Eighty/twenty,” yelled another. The instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 on the paper in big black letters. “You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” he said. “Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.

Where has my backbone gone? I know: I ripped it out like a string of pearls to give to her in devotion, jag upon jag of bone. And now she gambles with those same bones, knuckle rap on the machine, coin clink down that insatiable crevice. I want her to fill me up like she fills up that machine; instead I cry the milky wet of ovulation down my legs, oiled up and unloved, not even another body in the house to bump against in the hall, or a hug thrown to me as one might throw a bone to a dog as you desert it.

How? How do you pull the sun from her sky? Watch her spiral into darkness as planets shake and cry How do you separate a star from her moon? And ponder why nights are restless, blackened skies filled with an eerie doom How do you contain the rain that aches to pour and play? A summer’s day is lesser than she is because you took her rain away How? How can lovers so profound end in such shock and dismay, Ripped from each other, Just as love felt she'd found the one to stay, How?

If you use sex whenever you want with whomever you want, you’re treating it like trash, like it means nothing. Imagine a piece of duct tape. It’s got a purpose, it’s designed to stick to something, but if you stick it to the dog and rip it off, then the floor, the wall, the toilet, the neighbor’s pit, after that, it just won’t work right anymore. When you finally find your spouse and try to connect with them, there will be all sorts of crud in the way. It might be a physical STD, or it could be an emotional one that spreads through your relationship and life like an infection.

Right now, it seems scary, I know. But trust me, this will be the most freeing, healing, terrifying, awesome, excruciating, magnificent, supermassive thing you will ever do with your life. And you know what? The experience is all yours. No one can take that away from you. Are you going to have to learn how to feel a sliver of control over your body again? Yeah. You will. Is your relationship with sex going to morph and suffer? Yeah. Big time. But then it really will change for the best, and you'll be better off. You're going to meet so many women who make you feel so many things, who make you feel sexy, and safe, and dangerous, and alive in ways you didn't know were possible for you. They're going to rip your heart out and stomp on it, but that's okay.

you used to find refuge in me but now you’re swimming against the current of us. my desperation grows more teeth trying to make you stay and ripping the sinews of my heart.

On that, I pushed, shoved, desperate to get to a place where I could completely fade away and do it alone. Having been given too much too soon and paying the price by having it ripped away so that was all I’d ever have. Nothing. All I’d ever be. Alone. With all that, I made my final dash through the flames, making my way through the bar, out, and I ran to my car on my high heels. Destined to fade away. Ready to fade away. Needing nothing but to leave it all far behind.

You need to promise me something, too: no more running, okay? We need to stop denying what this is between us. You own my every thought; you are it for me. I have never gotten on my knees for anyone. I am the monster people kneel before. But I will always kneel before you, my goddess. I will worship you with every fiber of my being. A normal relationship is not something I can promise. I’ve never had one. But I want to try. Fuck, I want to try so hard to be worthy of you. The thought of you abandoning me today felt like someone had ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Be mine. Let me own your heart like you own mine?

Being in love is insanely vulnerable. You’re walking up to a person, ripping open your chest, exposing your heart, and asking them not to stab it. It takes courage to give someone the ability to know you completely and to crush you undeniably.

Awkward- everyone looks at you when you do that. But only she can get away with that messy hair and what looks to be hairy legs, Maddie will do anything for a chortle. I mean come on shower girl at least. The teacher even asked, and she said: ‘Hitech- I was out all night banging my boy, and I have a raging hangover, so can we get this crap over.’ He said yes, take your test, and a smart mouth to the office. She shuffles her bunnies to his desk, rips the papers out of his hands, will give him the middle finger, and you know the one that you’re not supposed to use in public. As she trips out the door. We all clapped and wooed! That’s when I got it, she has a secret relationship too. Yet does Jenny know, and how is that okay when she just likes me? The point is we can do things we like to do because we're popular and have it all. Up till now… we can only have and like what Jenny says is okay, so really- I can’t do what I want. Mine popularly is not that strong even to this day it could change at any moment with her say. Maybe I had more before I was popular. Like- I have to only like what the popular girls like, and only do things that popular girls do. I had to leave my past self behind. I can try to sneak around with my unpopular dream boy, yet she will find out, and if she does, will I be out of the click? I don’t know, I love my girls, yet do I love him more to give that all up and go back to that girl that has nothing. Or would I have something with him… now that I didn’t before. Do I have to fall back or keep falling apart? I just don’t know! I can get away with just about anything, yet I feel like I have nothing. I have awesome girlfriends; however, I feel so empty. I don’t feel like Karly anymore, Karly, was gone the day I was forced out of my virginity by Jenny at a drunken party. Though she blames me, because I wanted to be popular, Jenny said that was the only way if I was going to be like her and her girls. So, I did it. Ugh- maybe Maddie is now out of the click, and not caring anymore maybe that's why she looks like that? What should I do, what can I do? (#- hashtag: kiss and tell, misperception misfits, and yacking trash talk)

In Matthew 7 Jesus recognizes that parents love to give good gifts to their children. In fact, he assumes this is common knowledge when teaching his followers about how much more his Father loves to give good gifts to his children! As a parent, I love to give gifts to my kids for several reasons—to make them happy, meet their needs, surprise them . . . but most importantly because they’re mine and I love them. To borrow Jesus’s words, even we “evil parents” understand that gifts to our children are never the ends in themselves (7:11). They are always a means of care and concern, cultivating a familial love relationship. Simultaneously, every child (and all who remember childhood) resonates with the temptation to lose sight of the relationship over the excitement of the present. I can hear my wife sternly instructing my children, “Read the card before you rip open the paper,” trying to drive them back to the relational realties that produced their newest trinket.

Mulaney’s right: the bit has a lot going on beneath the surface. It speaks to our selfishness, our laziness, our child-like craving for fairness and revenge. It speaks to the ease with which we dehumanize others, and the system that makes it even easier by forcing us into transactional relationships. After all, it’s the theater company that rips us off, that sells us the “overpriced, oversized crap we shouldn’t be eating to begin with.” We get even by leaving our popcorn buckets behind, but it’s not the company that cleans our trash. It’s the minimum wage employee, who works two jobs just to keep her kids in school. But that doesn’t stop us, does it?

The perfect, eternal love relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit was ripped apart to allow us to be restored to God and reconciled to one another.

the same trolls who quietly avoided friends and family unabashedly reiterated the claim that “proper” targets of trolling deserved whatever they received. In the case of RIP pages, users “earned” their place in the trolling sun either by buying into existing media narratives or, ironically enough, by inserting themselves into other people’s tragedies (of which all participating trolls were simultaneously guilty).

In short, the oft-repeated (and reported) assumption that trolls devoted most of their time to terrorizing real-life friends and family members was not borne out by my experience. While certain RIP trolls did indeed attack real-life loved ones, and denied feeling any remorse no matter how traumatizing their behaviors (“I just hate everyone,” Peter Partyvan once explained in a private message, his noncommittal shrug almost audible33), most of the trolls I worked with found “real” RIP trolling either uninteresting or downright distasteful

Paul’s letter to Philemon has never been fully satisfying to activists and abolitionists, nor to those who bear the burden of injustice. It seems too incremental, too slow to right systemic wrongs. But it is less slow than it is patient. Paul’s expectations of Philemon are indeed radical, but they are couched in the radical patience of love. Institutions, even image-breaking ones, are so deeply woven into our culture that they cannot be ripped out of the cultural fabric without doing serious damage. Only when broken, image-breaking institutions are carefully unwoven and replaced with the power of new imagination and new image-bearing relationships can they be fruitfully discarded. Perhaps this is why Paul’s letter, so radical in its expectations, ends with hospitality, friendship and grace. Only as guests and friends of the true Host, the one who is himself preparing a guest room for us, can we unmake our institutions at their worst and be ready to greet him joyfully and wholeheartedly at his own return.

but relationships should probably start off with the truth, and I don’t think most people who’ve just met me want to know exactly the types of things I do. As Tommy had helpfully pointed out, “trained killer” is probably not what most people want in answer to the question, “What do you do for a living?” In the last five months, I’ve been on several dates. So far, I’ve been “ex-military,” “an Avalon specialist,” and on one particularly boring date, “shark trainer,” mostly just to see if she was listening to a word I was saying, or more interested in playing on her mobile.

I HAVE ASKED FOR HELP FROM ALMOST ALL THE SO CALLED PEOPLE PARADING THEMSELVES TO BE SPELL CASTERS, AT THE END I WAS RIPPED OFF OF MY HARD EARNED MONEY WITHOUT ANY RESULT. TO THE EXTENT THAT I SAW SOME OF THEM REWRITING WHAT I WROTE ON ONLINE TO THANK AKPE OSILAMA.MOST OF THESE PEOPLE TELLING YOU FAKE TESTIMONIES AND FOR YOU TO BEWARE AND BE-WISE TO AVOID BEEN RIPPED OFF, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE AT ONCE TO CONTACT THE ONLY REAL AND APPROVED SPELL CASTER IN THE WORLD CALLED AKPE OSILAMA. AS HE IS THE ONLY MAN YOU CAN ACTUALLY TRUST ON SPELLS I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT HIM RIGHT HERE IN THE STATES IF POSSIBLE. HE DID A WHOLE LOT OF THINGS WHICH I WON’T REALLY MENTION HERE BUT THE MOST OF WHAT HE DID FOR ME WAS HELP ME CURED OF MY CANCER,HELPED ME RESTORE BACK MY JOB AND MY LOST MARRIAGE.OH HE IS GREAT AND I MET HIM IN REAL TIMES IN HIS TEMPLE THAT WAS DIRECTED TO ME BY A CHINESE FRIEND OF MINE THAT FOLLOWED ME FOR A CONFERENCE MEETING IN AFRICA. I’M STILL VERY MUCH INDEBTED TO AKPE OSILAMA FOR SAVING MY LIFE AND MY MARRIAGE. I WANT TO LET YOU ALL KNOW THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO TRY ANYBODY ELSE EXCEPT THIS GREAT SPELL CASTER CALLED AKPE OSILAMA.HIS EMAIL CONTACT IS: CHIEFPRIESTAKPEOSILAMASPELLCAST@YAHOO.COM TO GET ANY DIFFICULTY YOU MIGHT FACING IN LIFE SOLVED.

A soul mate was the person who wielded the greatest power imaginable over you, the person who cupped your happiness in their hands. If the worst happened and the relationship crumbled, they used the power you so foolishly lent them to crush your dreams under their heels as they walked out of your life. Those same hands that had so delicately held your joy were plunged in your chest as they ripped your heart out by its roots.

We tend to look at sin according to the world’s moral standards. We think that lying is wrong because it betrays trust, that stealing is wrong because it destroys society. Homosexual adoption is said to be wrong by many people because children need a mother and a father. If the “morality” of something is based on what works, then it is fine for spouses to lie to each other as long as they find a way to have a relationship that works. Or stealing is morally okay as long as no one notices that he has been ripped off. Or if children raised by homosexuals are proven to be stable and happy, then the lifestyle of homosexuality becomes acceptable. But this perspective is a mistaken one. Rather, sin is wrong for one reason only: God says it’s wrong.

Even when restricted to grief tourism, these less vicious forms of trolling remained fundamentally asymmetrical. Furthermore, they illustrated RIP trolls’ deeply privileged (not to mention paternalistic) worldview, which the trolls subsequently used to justify what were still often quite destructive behaviors.

But I was mostly disappointed in myself for letting that day get to me so much that I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. I never imagined that relationships were like that. I never imagined the extreme joy you can experience. What I did know was how it felt when someone you love was ripped away from you. How gut-wrenching it could feel. I should have stayed away from any possibility of ever feeling that again. Cole

That night a loud thump woke Jessica with all the chill of a plunge into icy waters. She snapped up from her soft pillow, drawing her knees to her chin for protection, only to realize with a shiver that she needed still more, and so she snatched the covers to her neck – just in case someone was there, lurking in the shadows, gazing upon her in the darkness. Of course, that ripped the sheets off John, but he didn’t notice so it didn’t matter.

If you were often rejected or ignored by your parents while growing up, you can end up seeking the love and attention you were denied from your romantic partner instead. If your partner is even slightly indifferent towards you, then the wound from your childhood can be ripped open, causeing a big fight with your partner. But the real cause isn’t your partner; it’s the wound you are carrying around within you. Rather than projecting this wound onto your partner and causing a fight, set aside your pride and speak from the heart: “I am terrified that you will reject me and leave me, like my mum/dad did.” If we combine painful memories, the need for attention, and pride, the relationship can easily be ruined.

Oh, puppy…,” Thomas sighed. “I’m not sure that’s what you meant by making you feel my love,” Hans said, panting. Thomas chuckled and ran a hand through Hans’s hair. “I felt it. It wasn’t just sex. I felt you. I felt both of you.” “I love you,” Hans insisted. “I know,” Thomas said. “And I think I’ve been denying that I love you because I didn’t want to hurt Boris.” “I suspected,” Boris said with a shrug. “You know how I feel.” “You really do still love me? Not just as a friend, not like a brother, not like a fuckbuddy… You are still in love with me?” “Malish,” Boris said, drawing lines through the come trickling down Thomas’s side, “my love for you has not changed. I still adore you. I still get a hard-on just thinking about you. I would do anything for you—including ending our relationship with Hans, if that was the only way for you to be happy.” Hans hated to hear that. It felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest, especially after what had just happened between the three of them. Boris moved forward and kissed his forearm, just as Hans thought about pulling away from them. “But please do not send the puppy away,” Boris continued. “I love him too. I would be very unhappy to lose him.” “Hans isn’t going anywhere,” Thomas said. “At least, I don’t want him to.” He stroked the side of Hans’s face. “I love him too.” Hans went from devastated to overflowing with emotion in a microsecond. He smiled and closed his eyes against the sting of tears. “I love you. Both of you.” “You’re growing hard again,” Thomas said, laughing. “I can feel it. Do you want to do something about that?” “You must be pretty worn out by now.” “I doubt I could come again,” Thomas admitted. “Not for an hour or so, anyway. But I think you can fuck me again if you take it slow.” Boris roused himself from the torpor he normally drifted into after he’d had an orgasm. “No. I am vetoing this. If you need more fucking, you can stick it in my ass. Thomas will probably be in severe pain tomorrow as it is.” Thomas laughed. “It’s hard for me to say. Things are kind of numb down there

He refilled his cup with wine and felt himself fill up with a warm rush of pride for all of his people. It had been hard being literally ripped up from the roots and expelled into the limbo of Artemis’ wild north. Nobody had been properly prepared, but they’d had the vitality to survive and enjoy their survival. Perhaps the Elders of the marsh had wandered, bewildered, behind their children into the wilderness. It had certainly been the children who had sustained them. In Vangery, Meonel had never taken much notice of his son. Now they had discovered almost to mutual surprise, that they had a relationship. Meonel was young enough to be a friend to Orbin as well as a father. It gave him a start that was almost chilling when the boy caught his eye and smiled at him, offering a window onto the pile of maturing emotion to be held within. It was still difficult to look upon Orbin as part of his flesh. The boy had bloomed free of the marsh. Obviously, he was a plant that did not need roots.

I don’t think…I don’t think many people can really understand what it’s like to be so invested in someone—to share every single moment and then to have them ripped from you. We have an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship.

Become the head of the Yakuza and Romero will jump at the opportunity to give her to you.” I let out a bitter laugh, knowing the secret that ripped me in half. I almost wished I didn’t, but that was neither here nor there. I would let Illias believe it, because the secret of my blood relationship with Reina would die with my mother and me.

Since disillusionment through infidelity almost always brings shock, the other question common to all hurt partners is “How can I know you won’t do it again?” Reality has been ripped apart. Hurt partners, like all trauma survivors, are driven to put reality back together again.

We need to stop denying what this is between us. You own my every thought; you are it for me. I have never gotten on my knees for anyone. I am the monster people kneel before. But I will always kneel before you, my goddess. I will worship you with every fiber of my being. A normal relationship is not something I can promise. I’ve never had one. But I want to try. Fuck, I want to try so hard to be worthy of you. The thought of you abandoning me today felt like someone had ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Be mine. Let me own your heart like you own mine?” I can hear