Humans were walking wounds and sometimes, they shared.

In 1961, a recovering addict was saved by the works of an uplifting novelist. Months later, the man found out his role model committed suicide one morning. Liar, he cried. It was like watching his hero say that heroes don’t exist and then flying away. What do books mean if the writer gave up? The reader decided to give heroism a try and wrote stories about how great life can be until he could convince himself of it. The experiment is still in the works.

The best lover you could ever have will sit on this very bench 270 years from now. You two will never meet. And will never know you’ll never meet. They are, however, currently sitting with you because if you two did meet, you’d spend your time sitting as you are now. Because returning to that bench every afternoon, happily single, was like spending a day with every soul who wants to sit there too.

He thrust his pelvis against his mattress, humping his pillow and thinking of no particular woman or memory, but merely the idea of being touched by someone—anyone. It was a sort of sorrowful pornography, masturbating to the day he would never need to masturbate. He closed his eyes and released on his sheets two fluids of desperation: semen of a lonely man and tears of a lonelier one.

Jude wrote: I’m writing this sentence to confirm: I think about the past, I’m scared to go out in public, I miss a lot of people, I long for connection but no one impresses me, and the future is scary. I have hope that I am not a stranger to this world. To know again, my only relief.

I wrote a poem about happy times with a lady,About how nice it feels to love and laugh like crazy,But there is after all a pen in my hand and not her hair.All happy stanzas have a sad air.

It seems the recipe for human life is:3 lbs. of crumpled flesh generating too much electricity to handle,Atop bodies that aren't ever as touched as much as we please,Powered by hearts that end up magnetizing to the wrong people,Accompanied by souls that talk to other souls up until disease.

He spent decades researching his imagination. During this, he gave up the creation of children, the thrill of romance, and even religion for what he believed to be the most important story he could write. When you read his pages, and knew what was sacrificed, each chapter provided you an obscure timeline of a life he never got to live. The publishers will lie and say it costs twelve dollars plus tax.

Goodbye, but wave to me not! I cannot wallow seeing your hand unaccompanied, like an unclothed child deserving supplement.