darkness and light

"i've tried to avoid labels, but they always find you." ~ poppy z. brite

"i believe in whatever gets you through the night. night is the hardest time to be alive. for me, anyway. it lasts so long, and four am knows all my secrets. four am is when my dreams die." ~ lost souls by poppy z. brite

"i came to understand that these memories were my salvation. i no longer wanted to know why i had done such things if it meant i wouldn't want to do them anymore. i put my notebooks aside forever. i was different, and that was all. i had always known i was different; i could not trudge through life contentedly chewing whatever cud i found in my mouth, as those around me seemed to do." ~ exquisite corpse by poppy z. brite

she writes the most gory and disturbing details of life that i have ever come across, and yet she does this in the most beautiful of ways. all of it, the grotesque and the gorgeous are all wrapped up around characters that are flawed, rich, and wonderful. some of them still reside in the outskirts of my heart and mind to this day, never quite leaving after i read the final page and closed the book.

ghost and nothing from lost souls, and trevor and zach from drawing blood are still around; and at times pieces of them work their way into stories of mine, in the way that art inspires art.

missing mile, and the way she paints people and places hit me in the way that music does, tearing below the skin at times, and soothing the soul the next.

poppy also wrote one of the most provocative, raw and real biographies i have ever read, capturing courtney love in a way that was unforgettable and relatable, all at once. she is definitely on the list of people i would love to share coffee and conversation with someday, or sit in the back of a dark and dank bar, smoke too many cigarettes and talk about observing and capturing the world in words.

365 loves: poppy z. brite