James Davies

“She was alone with this presence that came out of the North, the dreary loneliness that rose from ice-bound whalers in the Arctic seas, from smokeless, trackless wastes where were strewn the whitened bones of adventure.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Ice Palace

“The first time I found my brother
overdosed, he looked holy. A thing
not to be touched. Yellow halo of last
night's dinner. His skin, blanched blue
fresco: Patron Saint of Smack. A Cop,
flustered, tugged up his shorts, plunged
a needle into his pale thigh. He hissed
awake like a soda can. The paramedic
spoke slowly in his ear like a lover,
asked him what color yellow and red
make. What is the difference between
a lake and a river? In the corner I
whittle my brother's used syringe
into an instrument only I can play.”
― Steven Espada Dawson

“The heart is always right. It never errs. The heart never errs. The heart never ever errs.”
― Karl Ove Knausgaard, Min kamp 5

“The wave flows, a solitary breaker until it crashes on the shore, and where there seemed to only be sand, gravel, seaweed and minute shells the withdrawal of the water now reveals a margin of beach dotted with cans, peanuts, condoms, dead fish, plastic bottles, broken clogs, syringes, twigs, black with oil.”
― Italo Calvino