I, love, I am the pure acetylene virgin attended by roses.

It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.

Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little?

How we need another soul to cling to.

In spite of everything, I still have my good old sense of humor.

Look at that ugly dead mask here and do not forget it. It is a chalk mask with dead dry poison behind it, like the death angel. It is what I was this fall, and what I never want to be again. The pouting disconsolate mouth, the flat, bored, numb, expressionless eyes: symptoms of the foul decay within.

Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don’t want to die.