I consider kissing her right there on the dirty couch, but self-preservation stops me. Once someone hurts you, it’s harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn’t stop you wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse

I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them.

Can't get away from your own self.

Mine. The language of love is like that, possessive. That should be the first warning that it's not going to encourage anyone's betterment.

The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.

I’ve stripped my life down,” he told me. “I don’t need much. I have all the company I want to keep right in here.” He shot himself in the head with his fingers. “People don’t understand about the need to live simply. They make appointments all day. They even schedule their own deaths. The first time they’ll have freedom to really be themselves is when they no longer exist. But up here, there’s nothing but me and the sky. A million billion stars.

It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.