“hey Jack
now for the tricky part
when you were the brightest star
who were the shadows?
of the San Francisco beat boys
you were the favorite
now they sit and rattle their bones
and think of their blood stoned days”

“You smell like honeysuckle. You likin' ole Jack now?"

"I never stopped liking you. Even when you were warding me away with the power of Catholicism.”

“Just some good ol' boys,
Never meaning no harm.
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they were born.”

“Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.”

“I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.”

“Come now, my child, if we were planning to harm you, do you think we'd be lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest?”

“There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.”

“That's what birthdays were. Days when you found out where you stood. Who was on your side and who wasn't. Nothing to do with how old you were.”

“I'm your nightmare. Did you think you were done with nightmares, now you've become one?”

“It's funny, because even though they're rattling on about the Games, it's all about where they were or what they were doing or how they felt when a specific event occurred…. Everything is about them, not the dying boys and girls in the arena”