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The Goodbye Song

Book by Karl Kristian Flores · 33 quotes · The Goodbye Song, Sadness, Loneliness

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The Goodbye Song Quotes

“The pub. It remained the only place in the world that had not evolved into anything more sophisticated. The buildings rose, the towers hit never- ending growth spurts, the concrete sidewalks turned to polycarbonate glass billboards, and the cars drove people. But the pubs—the pubs with their gritty melancholy—endured time. No matter how advanced this species grew to be, the human heart was never short of confusion and in need of the rugged, little lullaby of alcohol and alone time.”

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“Make tea. As the water boils, you think about the “her’s” like a love list. Valerie in the 4th grade, Naomi in the 6th, Linda in high school, Sammie in college, Camille from work, and the latest one to have signed your heart and left: Sophia. You think through each girl, wondering what she’s eating for breakfast. You miss them, not because you want a relationship, but because love only works in permanent marker.”

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“I won’t lie to you—I’ve walked around entire cities looking for Diana. It wasn’t my purpose for traveling, but it was my intention whenever I asked my pals if they wanted to walk around. She’s the reason my eyes scan crowds, why I buy certain show tickets, or attend daily mass. It has been hard. She left. And hell went out of business.”

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“In case you didn’t know I too went home after the ceremony And replayed the silent pauses of our failed encounter. I thought of a new clever thing I wish I said And you’ll never know it and I won’t know yours. In case you didn’t know I imagine weddings within the first hour of meeting you I felt your peek, but pretended not to look your way I looked you up online and now don’t know where to start That you whispered in my ear and I’ll masturbate To the once hot air on my neck. In case you didn’t know When I turned the corner, I cried. I thought I heard you, too. Maybe both our loved ones Share the same hospital. In case you didn’t know I wore bright colors and made the afternoon men laugh, But tonight I’ll drink to darkness because I have no one. They pay me well, but I only want that other thing— Your poetry, in case I didn’t know.”

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“He thrust his pelvis against his mattress, humping his pillow and thinking of no particular woman or memory, but merely the idea of being touched by someone—anyone. It was a sort of sorrowful pornography, masturbating to the day he would never need to masturbate. He closed his eyes and released on his sheets two fluids of desperation: semen of a lonely man and tears of a lonelier one.”

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“The best lover you could ever have will sit on this very bench 270 years from now. You two will never meet. And will never know you’ll never meet. They are, however, currently sitting with you because if you two did meet, you’d spend your time sitting as you are now. Because returning to that bench every afternoon, happily single, was like spending a day with every soul who wants to sit there too.”

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“The shit thing about beauty is only another can redeem it. You can love yourself, but because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those without beholders aren’t beautiful. They cannot trick themselves into thinking they are. Someone has to say it. Someone has to say, “You are beautiful.” One’s beauty is like the classic fallen tree; “If no one was near the tree when it fell, did it really fall?” If people called you a beautiful baby and now you’ve grown, are you still beautiful?”

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“There will always be more exciting things. Casinos will blink with avenues of exhilaration and offers to be devilish. The shelf of alcohol behind the bar looks like it may have a good read for you. A Chinese restaurant will buzz with customers and ticket orders. A booming concert may scream it has an extra spot, with strobe lights to hide your human. Partying people do not look like people who weep. You’ll think literature has no relevance to them. But eventually, the light will die down and the world will need to return home again. The fire will give out and the coals will glow and when the rising smoke clouds our vision, we will look for what we need: hearth. And there, the ignored is seen again. Asked for. There are exciting days, but the moment our flames die and we shiver honestly in our freezing universe, we will return to our homes, coming to what we need to, like mothers, like old love poems, like stringed instruments, like heroes.”

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“He clutched the handle of the knife with the same strength the gang members used to kick him. He was worthless, like a crumpled bit of trash thrown, but not worth picking up, that doesn’t even deserve a courteous foot nudge to hide. He was unseen, like the skin beneath the toga of a female statue made of stone. He was ugly, like the damaged face of the deformed stranger you try not to look at because you don’t want it in your memory. He was as soft as the pull-tab of a soda can, as easily broken as a straw wrapper, and as close to death as a baby slug crawling next to a group of kids at summer camp.”

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“My skin yields acne in double digits—a mountainous domain of genetic misfortune. Sometimes in the morning, the pimples get so bad that if I rinse my face towards the showerhead, the water breaks the pustule and I start to bleed. So I shower the same way I behave in public: with my head down. At bedtime, I get stiff because as soon as I turn to one side and sleep, I’ll wake up with a bloody pillowcase.”

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“We have to be careful how we treat others. The human brain is a sensitive flesh that can be punctured by a single event. Based on your sentence, you can leave someone an insult they’ll never forget. You can sometimes hear this frailty when shy voices ask things like: “Can I have another bite?”, “Please call me back” or “What days do you work?”

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“And I audition and I see people in the waiting room. And I can’t help but think: there’s a very slim chance people like acting,' said Eden. 'It has too many other things. Attention. Escape. People. Spotlight. But the actual thing of acting, the kernel, has to belong to fewer people than there are actors in this city. They were kids lacking something at a young age and the splendid world of the theatre offered them that, but as soon as they found love, drama, stability, or attention from another source, they abandoned the Theatre. Imagine how sad that feels—to be abandoned. To be told you are loved, again and again, and then be told it was never the case.”

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“The second I get into a car and we start driving, I imagine a fatal crash to the last detail. When I’m in the liquor store, I imagine a robbery by the time the cashier tells me the total. Every plane ride is an 8-hour movie in my head of me planning what I would say to the stranger on my right if the pilot announced the plane was crashing. I always imagine these scenarios. Family dying. Earthquakes. The earth suddenly falling because gravity left the party. It’s exhausting. Yesterday someone was afraid of me. I was bicycling with Austin and we saw a dead deer on the road. It was so large. Austin nearly fell off his bike when he saw it. Then he looked over at me confused. He asked why I didn't react to it. I told him it was because I’d already imagined one six miles back. There are always two worlds playing in my head at once: what’s in front of me and what could be.”

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“Some people only needed you for transactions. Don’t let sweet personalities fool you into thinking they’ll hold your hand if it’s got blood on it. If one day, you lost a leg, your boss wouldn’t close the store branch for you. If you lost a home, your old classmates wouldn’t lend you theirs. If you decided to give up, your circle will say you made the right decision. No one’s going to save you, but they love meeting you. And so suddenly, when you lose, the whole world turns on you. A freak— as if alienation was only one amputation, one home, one failure away.”

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“A lonely shivering afterward awaits your last sentence, like the wind that blows on the last man standing in a war, heaving on a battlefield no one will remember. Creation isn’t hard. Sleeping in two places at once is hard. Once you create, someone else holds you—on their desk. In the backseat. On their phones. Between their palms. Behold eternal agitation. Writers embark on a revolutionary idea only to be congratulated by katydids. Hearts spill on 8.5x11’s, scratching away their disguise, and then return to lunchtime feeling less than an inch themselves. How do you expect to survive?”

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“The wide-eyed professor lectured, on the verge of tears, and when class ended, the students closed their notebooks shut and asked of her plans for the weekend, which was answered politely, but with a tinge of sadness, for the professor feared her personhood, which had in her lesson plan existed truly only minutes ago, was already being reduced to the small, meaningless matters of tomorrow.”

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“Companionship will be made possible from enduring lonely nights, leaving the wrong drinking buddies, books and benches, concerts and stadiums, and universities and clothing stores. These were the conditions necessary for companionship. You will answer the question all souls ask: How will I find you? The answer: Truth magnetizes to truth, as long as it repels temptation.”

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“Sometimes I’ll be in my room and recall a terrible memory. I’ll laugh ridiculously into my bed or when I remember an embarrassing moment, I’ll curl up, crinkling myself with blankets I wish could swallow me away into another world. I probably look crazy—some girl reacting to her own head, so I make sure to say what I’m thinking out loud in order for the ghosts to understand. They may have seen a lot, but they’re not mind readers and may appreciate a backstory or two.”

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“The Day: Wondering if I’m mental Wondering if you are Stretching my spine Masturbating then hating it Falling in love on aisle 12 Acting tough in public Singing in the shower Lotioning my untouched body Fretting about my skin Missing her again And when I’m about to sleep, I wish I could just fast forward To wondering if I’m mental.”

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