Quotes by Dave Matthes

I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling superfoods, so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someones mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe whats on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my good deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me. The mirror, Ive noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me. I want these things, because if I didnt, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.

When it happens and it hits hard, we decide certain things, and realize theres truth in all those dark, lonely days He had an instantaneous look about him,a glimmer and a glint over those eyes,he knew how the world worked,and took pleasure in its wickedness.He would give a dime or two to those sitting on the street,he would tell them things like:It wont get any better,andMight as well use this to buy your next fix,and finallyIts better to die high than to live sober,His suit was pressed nicely, with care and respect,like the kind a corpse wears,hed say that was his way of honoring the dead,of always being ready for the oncoming train,I liked him,he never wore a fake smileand he was always ready to tell a story about how andwhenWe all wake up alone, he said once,Oftentimes even when sleeping next to someone, we wake up before them and they are still asleep and suddenly we are awake, and alone.I didnt see him for a few days,a few days later it felt like itd been weeks,those weeks drifted apart from one another,like leaves on a ponds surface,and became like months.And then I saw him and I asked him where hed been,he said,I woke up alone one day, just like any other, and I decided I didnt like it anymore.

Life will hack off your head and shit down your neck every chance it gets. Ive found that consuming drugs and booze, listening to music and always having an excuse in the best way to tip the scales.

In the hours waking,when were still all still,and you can hear the floorboards creaking,and you can feel the shades blow in,the night we slept with,well never kiss like that again.Our lips, will sever, our memories, will dissipate,and our shadows will be swallowed by the sky.

Distance, the dissonance insurmountable,would be not the end,but a magnet.When fingertips kiss,they imprint and cement something,that cannot be disintegrated. Time becomes a phantom,the wind becomes an anchor,and old dreams- blankets of warmth.Lull with me, Lady,there is no greater escape.Love and war, even when buttered on toast,still makes for the breakfast of champions.

Lovecraft says he knows about tentaclesbut that motherfucker never bedded a girl from West Chesterand survivedShe was a toothachethat oneand she tasted like crackthe best thing about her was if I was ever hungryI could always make a meal out of whateverwas making rest at the corners of her mouthI cant remember her nameas is the case with most of themthen again I cant rememberhow many donuts I ate this morningor how many beers Ill drink tonight,tomorrow

Some peoples glasses are half full. Im the one drinking them. Some people have forgotten that Pluto is still a planet. I still remember my childhood. Some people are vegans. I have common sense.Some people call me Maurice. Some people call me the Gangsta of Love. Some people just want to live...but me, Im the one still alive.

There just isn’t enough cock in this world to be caught suckin’ and be called anything but a slut for life. The cynic in me would call it a bad habit, but that’d make me a whore in denial and if there’s one thing I am, it’s an honest bitch. Then again, you don’t get famous for being daddy’s little angel, but you can easily fall into the Infamy Bracket by preaching a made-up Bible quote now and again. They say I’m shallow, but I’ve made a living out off diving off the deep end.

Theres folly in her stridethats the rumorjustified by liesIve seen her up closebeneath the sheetsand sometime during the summershe was mine for a few sweet months in the falland parts of December((( To get to the heart of this unsolvable equation, one must first become familiar with the physical, emotional, and immaterial makeup as to what constitutes both war and peace. )))I found her looking through a windowthe same window Id been looking throughShe smiled and her eyes never falteredthis folly was a crime((( The very essence of war is destructive, though throughout the years utilized as a means of creating peace, such an equation might seem paradoxical to the untrained eye. Some might say using evil to defeat evil is counterproductive, and gives more meaning to the word “futile”. Others, like Edmund Burke, would argue that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.” )))She had an identity I could identify withsomething my fingertips could caress in the night((( There is such a limitless landscape within the mind, no two minds are alike. And this is why as a race we will forever be at war with each other.What constitutes peace is in the mind of the beholder. )))Have you heard the argument?This displacement of men and womenand women and menthe minds we all havethe beliefs we all shareSlipping inside of usthoughts and religions and bodiesall bare((( “Without darkness, there can be no light,”he once said. To demonstrate this theory, during one of his seminars he held a piece of white chalk and drew a line down the center of a blackboard. Explaining that without the blackness of the board, the white line would be invisible. )))When she leftshe kissed with eyes openI knew this because Id done the sameSometimes we saw eye to eye like thatVery briefly,she considered an apotheosisa synthesisa rendering of her follyinto solidarity((( To believe that a world-wide lay down of arms is possible, however, is the delusion of the pacifist; the dream of the optimist; and the joke of the realist. Diplomacy only goes so far, and in spite of our efforts to fight with words- there are times when drawing swords of a very different nature are surely called for. )))Experiencing the subsequent sunriseinhaling and drinkingbreaking mirrors and regurgitatingjust to start againall in allI was just another gash in the bark((( Plato once said:“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Perhaps the death of us all is called for in this time of emotional desperation. War is a product of the mind; only with the death of such will come the end of the bloodshed. Though this may be a fairly realistic view of such an issue, perhaps there is an optimistic outlook on the horizon. Not every sword is double edged, but every coin is double sided. )))Leaving town and throwing shit out the windowdrinking boroughs and borrowing spare changeI glimpsed the rear view mirrorstole a glimpse reallyIve believed in looking back for a whileit helps to have one last viewa reminder in case one ever decides to rebelin the event the self regressesand makes the declaration of devastationonce more((( Thus, if we wish to eliminate the threat of war today- complete human annihilation may be called for. )))

She once told me of a night that fumed with escapes and was filled with bedsides reeking of ecstasy; she told me the stars cast not judgments, but blessings, knowing full well the disastrous outcomes of the deeds they cradled with the strings of their young hearts. She’d inhaled the night itself, those around her doing the same, and so all become one. No disharmony. No discordance. Nothing to shatter the cause; nothing to unearth the beauty. So as we together ascended that front porch, allowing the glow behind the blown-out windows and the odious steams plunder us from through the cracks...time forgot to distill us, and our steps became as silver as glass. I could no longer deny the boiling words of my blood: tonight would be the beginning of a very long road indeed.

Plans never go as planned, ever; that’s just how life is. People spend way too much time dreaming about a future they should be having more nightmares warning them against. But that doesnt mean you should let those bad dreams scare you away; all those nightmares want is respect. If you give them that, they’ll give you the space you need. Unless, of course, they’re the type of nightmares that have an appetite, then you’re fucked.

Embrace all emotions: sadness, happiness, sorrow, hate, love, prejudice, fear; they are weapons against our greatest enemy: indifference.

Sad, slow music in the small hours of the morning isnt just sad and slow music. Its a narration. And through the myriad of morning dew, we are the twinkling stars that fade with the rising sun.

Confidence dont mean jack shit in the real world, sis, she once said. I feel myself finding the courage to trust those words more and more with every twist of the knife. Coincidentally, last Tuesday afternoon I was involuntarily exposed to the punch line of an old wise tale that goes something like: Theres beauty that can be found in everything. But why cant the insensitive cunt who said that ever find the courage to look in the mirror? Because poopycock, one might say.

With riddles as black as coals, and answers as invisible as our past, I can only depend upon the crest of the rolling wave I now traversed; a romance worshiped only by the dreamer in us all, a psithurism of trust making its way through the years of our ascension to one day climb above the kaleidoscopic canopy of this mortal coil.

Hemingway is overrated,Twain is even more lost at sea,And all truths point to the mouth of a woman,Where both her whispers and her screams,Are born.Pour another glass, Beer, wine, whiskey,I dont care,So long as its wisdom is sharp,And it tells lies instead of promises.

You dont have to go back to the way things were. Just go back to the point where you left off. Dont start over... just keep going, but theres a right way of keeping going. And no one here is going to be angry at you for leaving. We all have to leave sometimes. And some of us never come back. But theres always a choice, even if youve already decided never to return. You can still come back from this. That is the only kind of faith that matters. Not in the world, not in...God..., not in our friendship... just in yourself.

When you can no longer differentiate between the insanity spewed onto the blank page, and the madness evident in the all-but shattered mirror...thats when you know youre doing it right.

The day I became a writerit wasnt the day a whore paid me in sexin exchange for one of my bookswhich happened often and more and moreas time went onit wasnt the first time someone actually paid for one of my bookswhich happens less and less as time goes onIt was the day I realizedthat everything is created by manGod, Satan, Judas, phobias, excrement, even deatheven womeneverything is created by manSo I said to myselfshit, let me make something let me tape together some words and sentencesand proseand predicatesand the residual shit that sticks to my ass after I wipeand compose a new kind of thingBut then I realized that others had discovered thisfor themselves as wellAnd suddenly the world became a jungleWhere everyone eats each other aliveAnd shits out the same shit

She came towards me with a juicy gash between her legs that smelled like my best friends sister Just when I thought Id escaped them allShe comes reeling herself inpulling at my stringsher hand quick to find my zipperShe moaned the way a drunk old lady doesAnd I wasnt even inside her yetYou dont have anywhere else to be, she managed to say...My wounds have been reopened tonight already, I mutteredI caught wind of the gully ...the part of her she once kept sacred as a ChristianI smelled the informationI lifted my hand into the air and hailed a cabHe rolled down his window and saw herFind another cab, he said, and sped off into the nightI took her homebecause she said she was lonelyreally she was drunk off somethingsome memory or some choiceshe walked funny... -one of her heels had brokenOn the couch I left her,Before I could go, she grabbed my cockI slapped her across the face and she pulled harderHer eyes stayed closedHer lips dripped Her grip clenched I wasnt getting out of this one unscathedIf I take my pants off, will you let me go? I askedIf you take your pants off, Ill be suckin that cock till you pass out from all the screamin...I slapped her again, because she needed itShe laughedSaying her cousin beat her harderSaying her father knew how to really... ...make things happenI asked her what her fathers number wasLets get his motherfucking self up here to take you away, thats what I saidShe said he died, or killed himselfWhats the difference really, she said, chewing on her hairShe let go of my cock on her own accordAnd she opened her eyes for a momentShe closed them againAnd I could tell she was sleepingHer eyes opened once moreHer face red where Id hit herShe tasted the blood on her lipDo you think if we remind ourselves enough, we can make up for all the pain weve caused others?I said to her, We cant. All we can do is keep ourselves from all those who dont deserve it.