CHELSEA HODSON, ‘TONIGHT I’M SOMEONE ELSE’
Some men never loved me, I didn’t care. Their names sounded like answers, and I used them as such.
Think of the heat between two hands about to touch, the language that exists in that silence.
I wanted safety and beauty — and he looked like Bob Dylan in the middle of the desert, and I thought that was what the love of my life could be.
Some people have needed me, but the ones I wanted the most didn’t need anything or anyone.
When I see the face of love, I won’t be afraid. I will see what I’ve been searching for all my life.
I loved everything the didn’t love me back; it was the easiest thing in the world.
I’ve had enemies so intense that it felt romantic, so mutual it felt like love.
Looking at the photo he took of me with my face half-lit against the brick building, my boyfriend said, When I make a movie, I want the whole thing to look like this.
Old letters are not proof of love, but they are proof that we were aimed at, even reached for.
What’s the point of longing? To continue.
What’s the end of longing? More longing.
Tending to everything and completing nothing — that’s one way to postpone death. Art, too.
Each time I lie, I surprise myself a little less. And then I really shock myself. Then I forgot.
A poem is a way of talking to the person you’re not supposed to talk to anymore.
I’m trying to remember all the times art saved me. Art can be so good that it consumes me.
If I don’t get what I want, I’ll die. If I get want I want, I’ll die. Either way, I lived.
Every song is on the verge of ending but not every song is beautiful, every human is on the verge of dying but I am not in love with everyone. I am in love with temporality, with the way we looked at each other for one night.