It was only when you left it alone that a tree might treat you as a friend. After the blade bit in, you had yourself a war.
Denis JohnsonSometimes I heard voices muttering in my head, and a lot of the time the world seemed to smolder around its edges. but I was in a little better physical shape every day, I was getting my looks back, and my spirits were rising, and this was all in all a happy time for me. All these weirdos, and me getting a little better right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.
Denis JohnsonThe first kiss plummeted him down a hole and popped him out into a world he thought he could get along inโas if heโd been pulling hard the wrong way and was now turned around headed downstream.
Denis JohnsonLove and violence-not to conquer one with the other but to live with both, that's what I've learned. Each pulling me a different way. If I relax my struggles they don't tear me in two, but lift me up.
Denis Johnson