Buddy Wakefield citations

“A waste is a nine-year-old boy playing catch with the roof of his garage who already understands that his existence makes for the perfect insult- gay. "You're so gay" a. k. a. stupid a. k. a. dumb a. k. a. wrong. Do you have any idea how gross it feels to hide inside the pile of lies it takes to make you, Sweet Angel, comfortable?”

“Listen, if you're from Arizona I'm not making fun of your home. I'm making fun of you for gathering there and building a community in an oven. Smooth move.”

“He's got a lead brain. It's a battle magnet. He carries it around by the guilt straps…don't laugh, you didn't see the size of the blizzard that birthed him.”

“Forgiveness is for anyone who needs safe passage through my mind.”

“We are the fed up grass roots movement of goose flesh, hell bent on living this one life by the way we feel our spines, saying what we mean, refusing to allow the few to preach to the many when it is the many who need to be hearing eachother.”

“Theses moments – as in a quote I read about life somewhere – are not a puzzle to be solved, but a moment to be lived. Just savor them when they happen. Call them coincidence. Call the synchronicity. Call them anything you want but, at the very least, savor them.”

“The truth is I am a perfect part of the exact point at which all individual human beings meet and the spectrum of voices weaving themselves in between and screaming 'every sick thought you've ever had and every twisted feeling you've ever felt are what make this painting complete.”

“But my father he didn’t read moon, he didn’t speak moon, and he didn’t write moon. So there was no letter found next to his body in the garage when he chose to leave this place on purpose without saying where he was goin’ or why. There are still days you can catch me tape-recording eternal silence and playing it backwards for an empty room just so I can listen to his dying wish. Shh.”

“If we were created in God's image, then when God was a child he smushed fire ants with his fingertips and avoided tough questions.”

“It was not my intention to make such a production of the emptiness between us, playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano to try to keep some dead singer's perspective alive. It's just that I could have swore you had sung me a love song back there; and that you meant it.”

“This poem may have meant nothing to you but I am confident that tonight my taking the time to actually write out my anger instead of acting on it has saved the life of at least eleven people in parking enforcement.”

“Dear Angry Older People, over 21-ish, anyone who considers themselves an adult, still bitter: Next time you're wondering what wrong with kids today, you might wanna check the examples you've been giving us to work with.”

“I keep forgetting to put focus on my to-do list. I keep forgetting to wander and have fun. I know I’m transparent but my insecurities are in all the right places, so go ahead, have a look.”

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

“If we could all rephrase the question from "What was your most embarrassing moment?" to "What was your most embarrassing year?" Then I might be able to give you an honest answer.”

“Jordan tattoos the words "forgive me" in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.”

“All these kids you can't seem to make any sense of would stop holding you so far off the edge of your seats if you'd start holding yourselves to the promises you make. We know you're not perfect because we're not. And I know I ain't perfect. But I believe I was meant to be.”

“There are moments of clarity daily. They open me up with a breath and keep me calm. They feed me the answers. And they hold me lovingly. They are gospelstiches. My childish ass has got to let them heal. This feud I’m having with myself isn’t even original. But it is thick and rooted. Here’s to today, slowing down, suspending judgment, and breast strokes through chaos.”