Brontez Purnell > Quotes

“I fucked him doggy-style because it’s the easiest way for two strangers to cum. He was facedown pretending that I was someone else. I was watching him facedown pretending that he was someone else. He was facedown pretending that he was someone else. I was watching him facedown pretending I was someone else.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“I had fucked enough boys with Catholic damage to know that if he's wearing a crucifix, he's definitely a ho.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“My only desire is to be desired. I feel like the whole equation cancels itself out and what it really means is I have no will—I can (at will) rip out all sense of self just so a boy can have one more hole to fuck me in.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“if I really had to deal with the predicament of
whose fault my childhood was
all I can say is
"it took a village”
― Brontez Purnell, Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse

“I can reason
that every person
who has ever criticized literature
who dared utter "the plot was paper-thin"
had to look at the arc of their own lives
and
if they were being honest
said the same thing”
― Brontez Purnell, Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse

“What was once a big beautiful star has collapsed in on its own weight and turned into a black hole.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“The most high-risk
homosexual behavior
I engage in
is
simply existing”
― Brontez Purnell, Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse

“You never stop looking like art to me”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“He had been to the houses of responsible adults before and didn’t really dig it; adulthood all seemed to be about boxes, mostly boxes, actually.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“DeShawn told his mother, should anything happen, he wanted to be cremated. “Where do you want your ashes thrown?” asked his mother. “IN THE EYES OF MY ENEMIES!”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down

“There was a time, many years ago, when he held vague plans of marrying some well-behaved man, moving to the suburbs, adopting children, and calling it a day. This was before he really knew himself. There had been too many self-publicized stunts of him unabashedly expressing himself in public, not to mention all those photos of him getting fucked floating around the Internet. Any man remotely resembling husband material steered clear of him years ago. There was nothing left to do at this point but become a drag queen and own a lot of pets.”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down

“DeShawn didn’t remember much of beating Juan’s ass. He was later told that he cried, ripped the phone out of the wall, and threw it at Juan’s head before screaming, “I have a college degree! I’m better than you!” and jumping over the counter. DeShawn tackled the man, pinned him down, and started punching him in the face. All DeShawn could recall was being handcuffed and dragged into the police car. It had all been worth it.”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down

“I, being what one therapist jokingly referred to as a “clinical sex addict,” am no stranger to the thought of wanting to be washed over by a nameless void of men, but the consistently unreliable variable that one can never count on in any sex scenario is other people. I know this from experience.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“I’ll eat your ass for an extra twenty dollars.” I wanted to unpack that statement but”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“He made a list. Many men had died or simply vanished from his life—Jatius McClansy, Arnold, Skylar, his father, his stepfather, the list went on. He made a list of the pros and cons of all these men. He noticed that the last con for each of them was, He never really loved me.”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down

“Jogging in public
reads as
"I just want to be liked"
I do work on my body to attract members
of my same sex
when I could just as easily
pray for the courage
to die alone
like come the fuck on already”
― Brontez Purnell, Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse

“DeShawn once briefly worked at the baths. One night he was cleaning the bathrooms when he heard a meek cry for help from one of the stalls. He saw beneath the stall door a pair of feet moving precariously on the wet, tiled floor. DeShawn cracked the door open and saw a man, he looked to be in his seventies or maybe even eighties, barefoot in a towel. He was so stiff he couldn’t gain control of his feet, and DeShawn had to lend a hand to ground him and lead him out of the stall, as a fall at his age could prove fatal. DeShawn looked at the man and all he saw was his future.”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down

“Last night DeShawn had taken a mix of drugs and decided to fulfill a fantasy he’d had for some years—the one where he goes to the back of the sex club, lies down on the floor with a towel over his head, and lets a bunch of gnarly strangers rail him. For years DeShawn had searched for the courage to make this dream real, but there were problems with its execution. DeShawn lay on the grimy sex club floor for hours, high and waiting for nothing, his pussy cold and lonely. No one would fuck him. Am I coming off too desperate? he asked as he collected what was left of his dignity and left.”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down

“Like, on what planet is his triflin’ ass, chaotic bottom energy not visually centered enough? Must I always have to bear witness to his soliloquy of love for dick?”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“I slowed for a second, though—my mind kept going back to the exposed, stained-wood beams on the ceiling and I felt worldly and sophisticated. I had never gotten fucked and appreciated architecture at the same time.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“I let him charm me more, I let him let me think I was special—I knew at my core that he was waiting to unzip his face. I’m blindsided by how abruptly it all happened, how fast he left his phone off the hook.”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“(I wanted to go bathe in penicillin.)”
― Brontez Purnell, 100 Boyfriends

“DeShawn himself had never thought of suicide, but he could understand ennui, that feeling of life as perpetual and epic but mostly for no big reason. On those really hard days DeShawn felt like a single sperm swimming around in some gay dude’s butthole, searching frantically for an egg that just wasn’t there.”
― Brontez Purnell, Since I Laid My Burden Down