“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. But I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”

— Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

i won’t blame you / instead / i will remember the kisses / our lips raw with love / and how you gave me / everything you had / and how i offered you what was left of me, / and i will remember your small room / the feel of you / the light in the window / your records / your books / our morning coffee / our noons / our nights / our bodies spilled together / sleeping / the tiny flowing currents  / immediate and forever  / your leg my leg  / your arm my arm / your smile and the warmth / of you / who made me laugh / again.

- Charles Bukowski, Raw With Love

“I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, “I’m going to pee..”’ hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carrying on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95.”
- Charles Bukowski