Poppy Z.Brite

As the night deepened and the traffic thinned to nothing, it seemed to Zach that the whole country lay over the next rise, around the next bend of the highway all lit up and wide awake, violent and strange and joyous, just waiting for him to come find it

He felt like a man made of television static, of a million roaring, hissing silver dots.

You’re not in New Orleans where drinking’s de rigueur, not anymore. Why not just forget about the stuff and make him happy? Because I don’t WANT to!!! his mind raged in the voice of a cranky three-year-old. I LIKE to get drunk sometimes

Yielding flesh in his hands, hot with fear, sticky with sweat and blood and already smelling of heaven.

A million mirrors, and none of them broken.

I was seventeen years old when I began, twenty-eight when they caught me. All the time I was in prison, 1 knew that if they ever let me out I would continue killing boys

The only constant thread running through my prison notebooks was a pervasive loneliness with no discernible beginning and no conceivable end. But a corpse could never walk away.

. Each had been someone's baby once. But so had I, and what good did it ever do me?

'What about this pet business? Are you going to let me put a leash and collar on you? Do I get to chain you up?

I met his gaze steadily as I slammed his head into the wall again, trying not to let my face contort, trying not to look angry or cruel. Most likely he was past knowing anything. But if he could still see me, I wanted him to know I wasn’t doing this because I hated him. Quite the contrary. Before, I had only seen him as a means to an end. But in these final moments of his life, I loved him.