"Apathetic in my adolescence,my heart is fluorescent. It flickerslike liquor store lights in the ghetto."

"The more we look at anything, the more we see ourselves in the thing. This is called projection. There's an ethics to projection, an unhinged sense of honesty. Honesty is complicated. The truth is fascinatingly flexible. Lying is boundless. It knows no limits. People lie all the time. Lying is an instinct. It's human nature. We lie to each other; we lie to ourselves. It isn't right, but we do."

"In the movies, God is an actor just like everyone else."

"The homeless dudes on Alameda all have legs any runway model would kill for, and sometimes I think of giving them money, but- I don't know, I've got bills to not pay, and drinks to make people buy for me."

"Under the influence, I am easily influenced. I try to keep my pants on, but some things are easier said than done."

"Everywhere I go, I kind of half stumble, half stomp. If there's a balcony within a hundred feet of me at any given time, I am on it- smoking a Marlboro light 100 and complaining about something."

"Every ghost has a story. Monsters are nothing without mythology."

"Another piano falls, but this time it's me- or my lascivious loneliness, or my grab bag of mental instabilities and emotional shortcomings, or whatever."

"Fucking fixes nothing, but certain feelings are unavoidable."

"Stars are dying all the time. Some explode. Some collapse and cave in on themselves. Those ones become black holes. Others get sucked up inside of them just for getting too close. Guilty by association. Prosecuted for proximity."

"In the mirror I stand, an injured deer in headlights, or maybe high beams, judging by the way my eyes water. I measure my wrists with my fingers, and I clutch at my rib cage, fingering it languidly, tracing the rise and fall of sharp bones until my heartbeat slows, and I dream of a faraway ocean."

"Standing in the spotlight, surrounded by all my selves, each of them naked and vulnerable before your lens, I want to be split open and reminded of shame. I know that sounds selfish, but I'm allowed to be selfish 'cause we're talking about photography. Do you honestly believe I don't see it for what it actually is: Exploitative? Exploitation is the nature of the beast, whatever the hell that means."

"Sometimes, when I'm chain smoking on the balcony and feeling like shit (which happens more often than I'd like to admit), I let go of a lit cigarette just to see if the ember will outlast the fall.It rarely does."

"There is stability in self-destruction, in prolonging sadness as a means of escaping abstractions like happiness. Rock bottom is a surprisingly comfortable place to lay your head. Looking up from the depths of another low often seems a lot safer than wondering when you'll fall again. Falling feels awful.I'd rather fucking fly."

"You give the shirt off your back, no questions asked, and you stand alone at the cavernous mouth of your suburban closet-your entire life spent wonderingwhere your clothes went."

"I'm a lot like you,and you're a lot like me.It's sad to say,and it's sad to see."

"Sometimes, when I'm chain-smoking and feeling like shit (which happens more often than I'd like to admit), I let go of a lit cigarette just to see if the ember will outlast the fall.It rarely does."

"I love you. Let's get this over with."

"Drugs may know how to numb a brain, but the past never forgets to resurface."

"You grow bored of these shrines, and you abandon thembecause you know for a fact that you will worshipanything you kneel before.Like God.Like cock.Like porcelain."

"My nose bleeds, and every comedown feels like an overdose. I try to make peace with God each time, but he shows no interest, and it reminds me of my dad, and I get so upset that I just have to do another line. Like I said, a cycle."

"You ask yourself when you'll learn, and the answer is always,'Tomorrow."

"Repression is dangerous. It makes anvils of memories and drops them from impossible heights when you least expect it."

"Crashing through windows I thought were open doors. Apologizing for the mess. Rationalizing my behavior in metaphors you'll simply never understand. Learning to accept defeat. Watching you walk away from me, from us, from all of this, using every door I missed. Begging, 'Please don't leave me now, I killed those boys to make you love me."

"Sunrise is starting to feel like a guilt trip."

"You burn bright and you burn hard, like a fire in a dumpster,and nobody is so worriedabout you burning as they are worried about the fire spreading."

"Regret, albeit raw and relentless, is almost always unremarkable."

"I need to move. I don't fit in here. I almost tried a juice cleanse once, but quickly remembered that I could starve, and was starving, myself for free."

"I gave them everything I had, and I guess it feelsalright.I gave them my body,and they use it every night."

"February falls on top of me like a cartoon piano. I reek of champagne, come, and CK One."

"It isn't easy, is easy to say and sometimes I think that the only thing we can dois say really easy things to each other."

"I want to know exactly how many pieces of myself I had to give away before I became something else entirely."

"I've memorized the best angles in the bathroom mirror from which to see how badly I've disintegrated. I truly do go from sixty to zero."

"I want to remember what we were like before we became ourselves."

"They say you can't build Rome in a day, but I'm pretty sure you could destroy it in even less."

"And, to be honest, if weed is a gateway drug, then I really did hop the fence, but sometimes I can't help but miss the sticky-sweet warmth of a good old fashioned hot box."

"I love like a beaten child and I trust like an addict."

"My slurred speech isn't from one or nine drinks too many, it's from my father."

"What if I were to tell you the game's been rigged, that I was destined to win from the very beginning? To be clear: Winning is subjective. For the record: I win by losing, by avoiding the confusion of possibility, the sheer terror of potential. To make a long story short: I win when I lose and I lose by running, by pushing you away."

"I haven't felt the full weightof the world on my shoulders,and I haven't experienceda fraction of the painand embarrassment I've put out into this great bigwhite world."

"It's so hard not to be fascinated by the broken, to remember that a boy with a sad smile and a pretty face is not the boy that you should fall in love with."

"Years from now, I will pass this same park, and I won't remember any of this.Instead, I will feel something like a spark- a heat like Augustin a suburban town,and a desire to groweven when I know I'll be cut down."

"Two sad eyes and one skanky smile, I practically pulse with the promise of promiscuity. I'm easy to catch, but too slippery to hold onto. Men love a challenge if the prize is guaranteed. I know how to start a fight while deepthroating a white flag."

"My desire to self-destruct is a one-night standon Groundhog Day.Fucking repetitive. Repetitively fucking."

"Coming down for the thousandth time, I'm perched on the precipice of a billion broken promises. I'm speeding through the intersections of my own broken heartstrings, blowing red lights and ignoring red flags. I'm thinking, 'history repeats itself.' I'm wondering why. The world outside is still happening also."

"I've come to realize that hunger feels more like home than any tangible structure ever has, or probably ever will. I know now that creating absence is my way of coping with absence."

"See, that's the thing about L.A.- When you've mastered the art of feeling lonely in a room full of people, that's when you know."

"I drink Coke-zero while I score coke from an honors student in Huntington Beach."

"I'm not bilingual, but I am fluent in therapists' jargon."

"A drop in the bucket, a tear in the ocean, you've been treading cold water, memorizing the motion just to stay afloat."