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#I've never said ''sodomy'' so many times. I think I've said it enough for a lifetime. Makes me deeply uncomfortable to use that word but...
henrysglock · 1 year
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Stranger Things: The Upside Down and The Divine Comedy
Okay, as you all know I'm not a religious nut. However, I did enjoy Dante's Divine Comedy when I read it for school.
That is to say...I don't call the UD "The Hell Dimension/Super-Hell" for nothing.
I think I can prove which crimes Henry actually committed, and what was a setup, using Dante's Inferno as a framework. I can also feasibly explain the existence, aesthetics, and chronological order of appearance of the different versions of the Upside Down that we see in the show.
To kick this off, I want to talk a little bit about the areas involved:
Paradise: A place of goodness, light, and truth. Many who reside here are concerned with worldly injustices.
Purgatory: A place of change, a crossroads, a holding space to decide whether one goes to heaven or hell.
The 7th Circle of Hell: Violence. The 7th circle has 3 rings: Outer is violence against people/property (murder/pillaging/rape), and filled with fire and blood. Middle is violence against the self (suicide), and those there are eaten by harpies. Inner is blasphemy, or violence against God and nature (including sodomy and usury), and those there are made to wander in burning sands.
The 9th Circle of Hell: Treachery. This circle is a frozen hell split into 4 sections, where sinners are frozen in an icy lake: Caina, Antenora, Ptolemaea, and Judecca. Caina is for betrayal of family. Antenora is for betrayal of one's nation. Ptolemaea is for betrayal of guests/those one has entered into a willing relationship with. Judecca is for betrayal of benefactors/masters.
The Pit of Hell: The very depths of Hell, where Satan, depicted as a three headed beast, feasts upon Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.
Cool. What does that have to do with anything?
It. Is. Everything.
Henry exists in five different settings at four different times chronologically:
First: He is physically and mentally in the Creel house, which is initially described as a fairytale. It's the place where Henry develops his abilities and begins to obsess over the injustices in the world.
Second: Hawkins National Lab, which is his turning point, the fork in the road between returning to Paradise or proceeding to Hell. He does not get a choice, here. By his nature, his hand is forced. It's a tragedy.
Third: He is in the Yellow UD both physically and mentally.
Fourth: He is physically in the Blue UD and mentally in the Red Mindscape in varying degrees. He never physically exists in the Red Mindscape.
(The five vs four will be important later when we talk about what Henry is by nature, and how that affects his location)
I think these different settings can be fit into the framework of the Divine Comedy
That is to say:
Paradise: The Creel House
Purgatory: Hawkins National Lab
The 7th Circle, Blasphemy Ring: Yellow UD
The 7th Circle, Murder Ring: Red Mindscape
The 9th Circle...multiple sections: Blue UD
The Pit of Hell: We have not seen this yet, but given the painting of the three-headed dragon and Nancy's beast with a gaping mouth...I think we will in ST5.
Based on this, I also think I can prove that a) Henry didn't kill his family, b) the 1979 Massacre was something Brenner planned out, and c) the 1979 Massacre was staged.
So...let's map this out from Henry's banishment to current day.
We're told during the 1979 massacre, which is painted as a betrayal of Brenner, that Henry killed his family. Point blank. That should land him square in the frozen 9th Circle, in Judecca or Caina. He...doesn't end up there, and we know there's a lot of shit about his backstory that doesn't line up.
Our first clue into this is where Henry initially ends up.
El pushes him, covered in blood, into the hell dimension. There, he's burnt and scarred before ending up in a rocky, yellow version of the UD which we have not seen until this point.
You would think he'd end up in the Blue UD, since that's the one we're most familiar with, but it seems that the Blue UD doesn't exist yet.
Either that, or Henry does not have access to it.
Why? Because Henry has not committed the deserving sins yet.
Henry arguable passes through the Outer 7th Ring, where he is briefly burned, likely for the murders in the lab regardless of their status as self-defense.
It's still murder in the eyes of the church, because it did not strictly require lethal force due to there being no deadly weapons present, as per St. Thomas:
"Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow: If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful...Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s."
Essentially: St. Thomas says: "Don't bring a gun to a knife fight, man. That's uncool."
Henry brought a nuclear bomb to a knife fight. He has to get zapped a little for it.
However, he does not stay burning. He is only spattered in blood. There is no sea of blood. Henry ends up in and stays in the rocky, yellow UD. Why wouldn't he stay in the Murder Ring...unless he hasn't actually killed anyone unnecessarily yet?
This ties into the Creel Massacre fuckery re: Virginia and Alice. Henry could not have killed Alice. Point Blank. Period. It's also highly unlikely that he actually killed Virginia. Even if he did, it was self defense. No betrayal of family. No Caina.
(Although: I'd argue that's where Virginia is ending up for that shit she pulled on Henry re: Brenner and the lab)
No Murder Ring...No murders. Self defense, plus a good bit of zapping for unnecessary roughness, but no sin worthy of the Murder Ring.
You'd think, though, that Henry would at least end up in Judecca, though, right? He'd end up there for betraying Brenner, his "master"...unless there was no betrayal. Unless it was Brenner's plan to incite the massacre, Henry was actually doing exactly as his "master" bid, killing the guards/orderlies was self-defense at its base, and he may or may not have murdered the numbers. It may very well have been staged.
This lack of Murder Ring and 9th Circle imagery majorly ties into the fuckery with the bloodstains, bodies, and perspective fuckery in NINA. It's possible Henry only killed guards/orderlies and 002. We don't even know why he was killing 002, or why 002 was in there in the first place. We don't know why bodies show up in places they shouldn't, or why bloodstains show up in completely different patterns, or even disappear entirely. We don't know why the actors playing the dead numbers switch between child and adult, and why they shift position so often. (All of this is Aemiron's baby, and he has way more to say about it, so I'm going to leave that there.)
Either way...Henry ends up in the Blasphemy Ring.
And what is one thing we know about Henry, based on his parallels to Will? He's gay.
Sodomy. Blasphemy.
("Fruit on pizza? That's blasphemy")
Anyway, the most heinous crime this man has actually committed at this point is homosexuality. Homosexuality is a sin of both body and mind...for the Original Henry (NOT something that happened due to the absorption or due to his hive-mind status. That will come into play later), thus Henry ends up in the Blasphemy Ring in both body and mind.
So...Yellow UD: Blasphemy Ring.
In conclusion: It's likely that Henry was set up...for all of it, pre-1983, and his worst sins were homosexuality and being excessive with his self defense actions. However, he ended up absorbing horrible people, which condemned him to deeper parts of Hell in the future.
Okay, neat. So...what about the Blue UD and Red Mindscape?
What's interesting about both of these settings is that we only see them after the events of 1983 (the Gate, the killings, Will). Up until 1983, Henry wasn't physically able to commit any other sins. It's likely that we only see those two realms after 1983 because Henry didn't have reason to exist there yet.
He hadn't done anything worthy of the 9th circle.
So...why 1983? Wasn't that murder, rape, sodomy, and property destruction? Shouldn't that keep him firmly in the 7th circle?
Not necessarily.
Let's think about the 9th circle, and about what Henry encounters in the Yellow UD.
Henry encounters the Shadow Monster and we see at least one demogorgon, which were relatively docile at that point...but which we know go on to be the vessels for Henry's major crimes of the series. We see him enter a willing symbiotic relationship with the creatures of the Yellow UD via the Shadow Monster, which changes/shapes it.
And then, in 1983, when El opens the gate, everything changes. A "demogorgon" (likely, if not definitely, Henry) takes Will.
The Blue UD was, presumably, created and frozen on that date.
So what does that have to do with the 9th Circle?
The demogorgon and Shadow Monster were non-aggressive pre-Henry. Henry, in a betrayal of a willing relationship, corrupts the creatures to continuously harm Will. Ptolemaea.
It is also a betrayal of a benefactor. Judecca.
It is also a betrayal of his nation, as he attacks the citizens and government officials of Hawkins. (This concept becomes even more relevant in ST3, when Henry uses the Russian gate to enter Hawkins.) Antenora.
All the creatures involved physically end up in the 9th circle/Blue UD with Henry because they are a symbiotic hive mind, regardless of whether the Yellow UD even exists anymore or not. The sins of one (Haha...001) become the sins of all.
That's great, but what about the Red Mindscape?
This is where absorption comes in...and where I bring back our five settings at four times.
Everything we've talked about so far has been physical and mental, or solely physical. We haven't touched on Original Henry vs Henry et. al vs Henry the Super-Organism.
Henry is not alone in his body. Henry's body is a super-organism. He's many people in one, many beings in one. What the body commits, the original mind may or may not. Due to the fact that he literally contains multitudes, being part of the hive mind, Henry the Mind is somewhat separate from Henry the Body.
That is what the Red Mindscape is for.
The Red Mindscape, where Henry mentally commits his murders from in his bids for freedom, is distinctly wet...and red...like blood. That is to say...like the Murder Ring of the 7th Circle.
Henry's mind, which contains multitudes of other people influencing his original self, is usually in the Outer/Blood-Sea Ring of the 7th circle, and not always in the 9th circle with his body. When he is in his body, when he is with the multitudes of creatures and people, he is in the 9th Circle because the post-absorption, post-hive-mind body committed 9th circle sins. When Henry leaves his body, when he commits the murders with his mental powers...he ends up in the Outer 7th...the Murder Ring...because that is the worst sin that Henry alone, as the composite human mind, has committed, regardless of the influence on him by others within his mind.
This is why we no longer see the Yellow UD for any form of Henry post-1983, regardless of whether we think the Red Mindscape/Blue UD replaced the Yellow UD or we think Henry was moved and split into the different realms. Whatever the case may be, he has progressed into a different level of hell. Homosexuality is no longer his worst sin as a whole super-organism or as a composite mind.
We don't know what Original Henry's setting is as a single person, or if he exists distinguishably. He may exist solely in the Red Mindscape. He may be along for the ride with the composite mind. We haven't seen Original Henry outside of pre-massacre NINA, and even that was debatable at best due to Brenner's influence.
I hate to make a Shrek reference...but by God the man is an ONION. He has so many layers, and we've only actually seen two of them...maximum.
A note just in case anyone asks: Dante traveled through all these different places without having committed any of the sins. Thus, he was only educated, not punished. Hence why everyone who comes and goes from the UD without having committed the deserving sin, can come and go without receiving punishment.
So what about Barb and Will? The ST4 victims? What did they do?
Well. That depends on your point of view and how extreme you take betrayals/sins.
It could very well go like this:
9th circle: Blue UD
Ptolemaea. Betrayal of a willingly entered relationship.
Barb betrays Nancy by not supporting her with Steve...but it's also implied that Barb is into Nancy. This could be perceived, by some, as a betrayal of Nancy's trust in a platonic relationship. Ptolemaea.
Will betrays Dustin immediately before he is taken. He cheats in the race home. He also, as we know now, is into Mike. Another betrayal of a platonic relationship. Ptolemaea.
Max mentally betrays Billy by wishing he was dead. Thus, her mindscape is the Blue UD graveyard. Caina.
7th Circle: Murder Ring
Red Mindscape
Chrissy betrays Jason by turning to Eddie for help/drugs, which is what spirals the situation into Jason's death. Murder.
Fred betrays the victim of the car accident by not getting help. Murder.
Max wishes death on Billy and stands by while he dies. Murder.
Patrick aids Jason in his attempt to murder Eddie, which spirals into Eddie's death later on. Murder.
Interesting to note here: Both Barb and Will get slugged by Henry...but not in the Blasphemy Ring/Yellow UD. It clearly has something to do with sodomy, homosexuality, and betrayal...but not on the level of setting/location. This is Henry-specific behavior, not realm behavior. They're in the Blue UD/9th circle on the basis of the betrayal, but the slugging? That's pure Henry. I want to visit this on a Creelarke basis re: my DALDOM thoughts from earlier. I think Henry is projecting himself onto others the same way he does when he chooses his victims in ST4. Local man punishes the new round of gays using sodomy-type behavior because he a) was not permitted to have a healthy relationship with homosexuality in his formative years, b) perceived his nature as a betrayal or was made to perceive it that way, and c) was then abused using his own sexuality against him for two decades afterward in the form of MKULTRA.
Or we can see them as the objects of Henry's sins.
Barb and Will are the objects of Henry's sins, his crimes in the pursuit of freedom, and they exist as the reason Henry is in the Blue UD, not necessarily that they did anything wrong. Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, and Max exist as the objects of Henry's sins, while not having actually done anything wrong.
I also have some supporting evidence for this framework outside of Henry's narrative re: the Upside Down:
Dante's Divine Comedy is his progression from doubt to faith via revelation of truths re: the afterlife. Henry's story almost exactly maps it in reverse: He starts out happy and normal in his fairytale home, but then begins to doubt and distrust the world. After experiencing untold abuses, he ends up in Hell.
Henry's story very much feels like a Lucifer tale: God's favorite angel, a creative, intelligent boy with incredible abilities, ending up cast into Hell by the inevitability of his circumstances and his own inevitable, inborn fatal flaw.
Henry comes from what is at least a somewhat religious family: Victor speaks of demons and angels readily, and even hired a priest/had an exorcism done.
Henry encounters all sorts of creatures in the Yellow UD. He encounters the Shadow Monster, the demogorgons, and arguably demodogs and demobats: Demobats, like harpies...which go on to eat Steve and Eddie, who are both self-sacrificial to a fault. It's also implied that the 1979 Massacre may have been a suicide-by-cop/"I'll take out as many as I can before they kill me, because there's no saving me anyway" type deal, given that Henry does not request El's assistance once he realizes he's absorbing the lead guard. He goes it alone, without knowing what effect years of Soteria had on his abilities. He had no way of knowing his limits. He would have been expecting them to use lethal force...but then there was no one left to kill him. On top of that, it's implied via Henry's monologue that he's at least passively suicidal regardless. Hence, demobats in the 9th circle hive-mind functioning as harpies from the Suicide Ring of the 7th circle.
Brenner "dies" in the burning sands of Nevada: This happens after decades of harming children, namely...three-legged Papa. Sodomy is defined as any non-reproductive sexual intercourse. Three. Legged. Papa.
In the Blasphemy Ring of the 7th circle, Dante meets his late teacher...and speaks to him kindly: Brenner "dies" in the burning sands of Nevada, much like the burning sands of the Blasphemy Ring...and El speaks to him kindly. She doesn't rant at him in anger while he "dies". She holds his hand, and says goodbye.
Will's S2 Visions: Will sees the Blue UD multiple times throughout early S2. He's seeing visions of the 9th circle without actually being in it...but why? Well. He then goes on to (while possessed) indirectly kill Bob, a father figure, and directly strangle his mother. Caina.
All the religious/spiritual imagery in ST4: The Russian church, the Binghams, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With GOD)", Victor's demons and angels, "[Spiders] are the gods of this world", Henry's Christ pose while El disintegrates him, Hellfire club, the article Eddie reads at lunch about D&D being linked to sodomy, suicide, and murder.
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lemonlovemeanslove · 1 year
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Something that I've always found to be interesting about homophobia is that people who grew up more liberal seem to kind of misunderstand it. And they seem to misunderstand how conservatives view it, which I think can be quite harmful actually. Many liberals and leftist will point out how conservatives will on go on and on about the sex lives of homosexuals, and how much time and energy is spend talking about gay sex. And I notice that a lot of liberals will then go oh, that's because these conservatives are closet cases, they are gay, that's why they place so much emphasis on the sex part. And like, that could be true for some, but I don't think that that is really IT. And I think this misconception stems from the fact that liberals aren't taught how to homophobia the way that conservative are. When you grow up in these families, it is vital that you divorce gayness from love. Being gay isn't about love, or loving someone. It's about having gross sex, unnatural sex. Because it's so much harder to teach hate by telling people that you are against love. Gay people don't LOVE other gay people, they have gross sex with other gay people. Being gay is having gay sex. Which is gross. And the reason that this works so well is because conservatives already have such a tense relationship with sex, even the ’’normal’’ straight kind. It is so often seen as dirty, or simply just a biological function/necessity, not as an act of love or intimacy. When I was a kid, it was important for me to understand that gays were these permiscues, perverted people who wanted to have weird unnatural sex, and thats all they were. This is also how beastiality enters the conversation, which sounds really crazy when you don't grow up in this sort of environment. And like yes, likening gay sex to beastiality is of course crazy, but if you are taught that being gay is the same as having perverted sex, it isnt that far out for these people. My parents never looked at me and said, we don't want these two kind ladies to love each other. Don't look at that old gay couple making each other smile and laugh, look at them and think of sodomy. And hellfire. And then of course, I eventually realize that im gay, and kid me wants to shrivel up and die, because she think that this makes her a pervert. And I'm a kid right, so I'm not actually interested in sex, but still, I feel that I'm a pervert, a predator. That im sexualy deviant. And even if that's left me in the sense that I don't really think that being gay is perverted, I still FEEL that I'm being a problem, or being creepy if I like some girl. And it's not as bad as it used to be. Like at 15 I felt fluttery seeing a girl I liked smile and then immediately be hit with this sickness, as if I had just violated her, assaulted her. But yeah. Kinda wish that those who were lucky enough not to be raised like me and so many others would know more about how homophobia is taught. I mean like this is also why they don't want kids to know about gay people, bc how can you talk about gay people without going into intimate detail about how they have sex lol. 
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peanutxparker · 4 years
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A (very long) list of all of my favorite AJJ lyrics because why not
Candy Cigarettes and Cap Guns (2005)
“Well my great grand-dad he died of cancer, from smoking too many cigarettes. But I must confess that he did quite profess to being the coolest motherfucker I ever met.”
“And cocaine is essentially vegan and they don't give a fuck anyway.”
“And I can't help but miss him even though he hit me everyday.”
“So fuck white people! (fuck white people!)”
“Heaven is a special place in hell where you can watch the people you hate get hurt.”
“You find me quite charming and I find it quite alarming ‘cause I'm gonna take your life. You find me quite charming and I find it quite alarming and I'm sad you won't be my wife.”
“What makes you think you can be so pretty? And what makes you think you can be so great? And what makes you think you can be so intelligent? And what makes you think you can be so far away?”
“What makes you think you can be so wonderful? And what makes you think you can be so keen? And what makes me think I can be so hurtful? And what makes me think I can be so mean?”
“Sometimes I feel like a cigarette, I'm wrapped in paper and I'm suffocating to death.”
“I don't want to be a cigarette anymore. I'll go to hell in my self death all day and night, so please just put me out.”
People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World (2007)
“Rejoice despite the fact this world will hurt you. Rejoice despite the fact this world will kill you. Rejoice despite the fact this world will tear you to shreds. Rejoice because you’re trying your best”
“I'm afraid to leave the house. I'm as timid as a mouse. I'm afraid if I go out I'll outwear my welcome. I'm not a courageous man. I don't have any big lasting plans. I'm too cowardly to take a stand, I want to keep my nose clean. And it's sad to know that we're not alone in this and it's sad to know that there's no honest way out. In this life we lead, we could conquer everything if we could just get the brave to get out of bed in the morning.”
“And I give a thank-you to my father for not raising me, and I give a finger to my step-father for beating me, and I give props to myself for achieving, and god damn I’m glad that I survived, and god damn I’m surprised that I survived.”
“So I looked into your eyes and I saw the reflection of a coward you and I both hate very much and then I grabbed the knife and I let the blood out of your throat and I smashed those tiny mirrors inside of your skull.”
“If I don’t go to hell when I die I might go to heaven, might go to heaven. But probably not.”
“Just happy times and half assed rhymes and mimes because mimes are dears, but most of all I want no more tears.”
“No more racism. No more discrimination. No more fat dumb fucks keeping people out of our nation.”
“We’re all one big band across this land and we should sing in tune. Let us grow the balls to break the walls, we’ve got to do it soon.”
“And I hope our candles flicker and die so that our hearts don’t burn to the ground.”
“First we were babies, we're birthing and dying. Then we were children, we're playing and crying. And then we're teenagers and smoking and fucking. But now we're all grown up and we're sadly sighing.”
“And your manic depression, it comes and it goes. Your parasympathetic nervous system reacts and you're in fight or flight mode.”
“How's the world so small when the world is so large? And what made the world? Could I please speak to who's in charge? Everything is real but it's also just as fake. From your daughter's birthday party to your grandmother's wake.”
“I've tried to know which words to sing so many times. I tried to know which chord to play and I tried to make it rhyme. And I tried to find the key that all good songs are in. And I tried to find that notes to make that great, resounding din.”
“There's someone in your head waiting to fucking strangle you.”
“I've got essays, I've got finals due. I have got lots and lots of problems.”
“Welcome to this world, have as much fun as you would like while helping others have as much fun as you're having. Be kind to those you love and be kind to those you don't but for God's sake you gotta be kind.”
Can’t Maintain (2009)
“I wanna pick up the pieces and plant them in the ground. When a tree grows there I want to chop that tree down. Build it into a boat and float it in a lake. And with dynamite I will explode the thing that makes me make mistakes.”
“Sometimes I get so lonesome I can't breathe. Sometimes I get so scared that I can't speak. Sometimes I get so worried I can't hear my heartbeat. Anyway…”
“I wanna tear out my heart and give it away to a person more deserving one day. If all I see is the worst in everything that's all I'm gonna get, that's all I'm gonna get, that's all I'm gonna get.”
“And people freak me out. People make me scared. People make me so damn self-aware.”
“I get bronchitis twice a year at least. My lungs aren't the way they should be. And I smoke more than a mother fuckin chimney. I declare war on my body.”
“You will cough up crows that peck my eyes and I will do nothing but go blind.”
“We could live there together or I'll live alone, less happy but I'll live... unfortunately.”
“And no one will know how I truly feel ‘cause I can no longer differentiate between what is fake and what is real. I don't know how I feel.”
“And I will always appreciate bad days like this because they grant me a point of reference in regards to my happiness.”
“If the bridge that I was driving over collapsed while I was driving over it that may not be such a bad thing. I would finally meet my maker, I could meet the great creator, and I'd punch him for teaching me how to sing.”
“Don't know if I believe in god but sometimes I pray because the way I was raised keeps me afraid.”
“I hope I can forgive me for having the nerve to exist. I hope someone can help me make some sense of this.”
“Sense and sensibility and peaceful productivity, a pretty girl with broken wings is all that I desire. But there's so much hostility in all the things surrounding me. The awful glow of enmity is trying to stop my shine. So I try to look inwardly at all the things inside of me but sodomy and buggery keep bubbling to the top.”
“I met you once over the phone, you sounded sad and you seemed alone. You left me but I never left you. I never had the chance to.”
“If you spend all your heart on something that has died you are not alive and that can't be your life.”
Knife Man (2011)
“There's no one to blame. People are just fucking mean.”
“So if I see a penny on the ground, I leave it alone or fucking flip it. I'm a straight white male in America. I've got all the luck I need.”
“I've got a pile of broken mirrors and I'm walking under ladders and I'll spill a ton of salt because to me that doesn't matter.”
“You were dead by the time that I had found you. Your blood was spilled on the couch where we had first kissed. So I carried you west to the sea so I could wash you. Your body felt just like a back pack.”
“I hate whiny, fucking songs like this but I can't afford a therapist. Sorry guys, here's a solo.”
“Some days I feel like I'm the weakest and others the strongest. These days are the longest and I've got the weirdest feeling about this and I wanna go away for a while.”
“I wish I had a bullet big enough to fucking kill the sun. I'm sick of songs about the summer.”
“When you have no one, you are no one. Like I said, I used to work at the people pound. All these no ones clumped together, just like a human lost and found. If they left them all be someones there wouldn't be enough to go around. It's better for us all us if there are no ones. And I knew a lot of no ones round that time. They used to all be someones until something took their life and all their someones disappeared while they're stuck there waiting in a line. And for them now, no one seems to have the time.”
“They say ambition is an enemy of weakness and greatness is an enemy of fame.When I pick up my guitar and I try to write a song, I think of what my mentor used to say… “Who fucking gives a rat's ass Steve, just write a love song. Cus they'll keep your belly full and your wallet lined. Don't bother these nice people with your sad sack songs. If you ask me I think they're just a waste of time.””
“Inspiration is the best friend of my sorrow and sorrow is the best friend of my drink. Well I want to look myself in the eye tomorrow but I'm too worried of what other folk's will think.”
“And the troubles in my heart need to get let out. And the troubles in my heart need to escape. And I never liked writing poetry and I never liked doing pottery and God knows that I never learned to paint. So every now and then, I'll sing sad songs. Cus it keeps my spirit light and my conscience clean. And if you don't care to hear I don't mind if you go out for some air. Cus I'm happy that you're happier than me.”
“So I wish I had a cigarette for every time a perfect stranger asked me for a cigarette but I wonder what a cigarette will really do to help that person out. I wish to God I had some spare change for every time a perfect stranger asked me for some spare change but there's not enough spare change in the world to make such an empty gesture count.”
“You can hope it gets better and you can follow your dreams but hope is for presidents and dreams are for people who are sleeping.”
“You don't have it any better and you don't have it any worse. You're an irreplaceable human soul with your own understanding of what it means to suffer and that’s a huge bummer.”
“I'm afraid of the way I live my life. I'm afraid of the way I don't. I'm afraid of the things that I want to do but I won't. I'm afraid of God. I'm afraid to believe and I'm afraid of all the loved ones that I've made leave. I'm afraid that my dog doesn't love me anymore. I'm afraid of the social laziness that let Kitty Genovese die. And I'm afraid of the mob mentality that makes otherwise normal people go blind. I'm afraid of the way that the world works and I'm afraid of the words in my notebooks. I'm afraid that you all know that I am a pervert.”
“It's harder to be yourself than it is to be anybody else. I wish I were a little less of a coward but the big red bird that lives under the city doesn't give a damn about me and it dies every night. So I bought a knife. I am a knife.”
Rompilation (2012)
“I used to be a spiderman, I used to be a cowboy from hell, but not anymore. Now I'm just a clam and I live inside this shell inside this shell I am. God damn I hate my brain.”
“I'll dip my brain in medicine so that you can stand to be with me.”
“Give me your tired, give me your tired, give me your poor. When our government acts like this, I wonder what World War II was for and the rest of the country hates us more and more. Lady Liberty is not a whore.”
“This is not a protest, it's a tortoise slowly pushing through a race. I hope the tortoise keeps its patience while the hare continues to pepper-spray its face.”
“There is no enemy, there's only people that also love their families and they're scared that they won't have enough long after they are deceased. But how much money do they need? Love turns into fear, and fear turns into greed. There is no enemy, there's only dummies that also love their families.”
“And this is not a phase, it's just a matter of time, with diligence and peacefulness, you will reach them and you will change their minds. If you stay there long enough, they'll start to see you.”
“And when you pushed my face in shit how could that have made you feel like a man or like a monster. It's your fault that I can't tell the difference.”
“In the evening I try songwriting. I'm self loathing, but I love singing. I'll try escaping these evil feelings but they keep coming, they keep coming…”
“So the baby's gonna have a daddy, that's wonderful news. He won't be the greatest parent but neither will you! Gotta get out while you can, otherwise you're screwed. Your legs are broken and your eyes are black and blue.”
“And smoking is like hiring a hitman for five dollars a day, and as cool as that is, I don't wanna keep dying this way.”
Christmas Island (2014)
“Shoot him again ‘cause I can see his soul dancing.”
“If you give it to me I’ll give it back much harder. If you treat me like a son, then I’ll treat you like a daughter. Everyone has a future, everyone has a soul, everyone has a heart, they have a mind, they have control.”
“The Coffin Dancer dances like he has something the prove because he does. He sleeps a couple hours in the morning, hates the morning when he wakes up.”
“The Coffin Dancer dances like he wants to make a friend, but he does not.”
“Getting naked and playing with guns. There's a gerbil in the microwave, a baseball bat in everyone. Sharing kisses and building a bomb. We'll set it off like Microsoft in '94.”
“McDonald's PlayPlace before the Xbox, cake frosting, sweet talking, bedroom wall, covered in knives, touching God, burning shit. We'll make a wish and take a trip to Future Town like our daddy did.”
“Have you ever wanted to be, have you ever wanted to see someone better in the mirror? Have you ever wanted to go, have you ever wanted to know somewhere greener, somewhere cleaner. I bet you got something beautiful in mind.”
“I can’t handle astounding works of beauty. I think I like my pretty pretty ugly but the beautiful soul I witnessed in that movie was an entirely different kind of overwhelming. It was a dog that won’t stop barking. Like a cut that never stops bleeding. Arizona sunsets in the early evening. Or a grown man inconsolably weeping.”
“I am the Kool-Aid stains on the mouth of a kid whose name is most likely Cody. He had a juice box for breakfast and he carries a stick that he most likely found in the alley. Cody doesn't have friends and his parents hate each other and he wants to find a better way to love his family and after school he hangs out in the abandoned house behind the Arby's.”
The Bible 2 (2016)
“Oh, I love you cause I love you cause I can.”
“On your last night at Saint Mary's you were way too intoxicated to breathe. So I used your ribs as ladders and I climbed up on your chest and I jumped up and down just like a trampoline.”
“Confused and rude. Such a special kind of way to be cruel.”
“If I were one of the things, I'd be american garbage. The most beautiful thing. The most beautiful american garbage you have ever seen.”
“No more shame, no more fear, no more dread.”
“And if you don't want to feel the feeling, no one should ever make you feel the feeling.”
“I thought I saw you before I knew who you were.”
“I just wanted to rage but all I got was tired”
“I showed him all the books that I was raised on. Your Madeleine L'Engle(s) and D'Aulaires' Mythologies.”
“And his eyes became a beacon, an LCD projector, broadcasting all my memories in a clear and vivid picture. His tongue became a staircase, his uvula - The knocker of an ornate wooden door that lead me straight into my future. His throat became a hallway with a thousand baby pictures and I became forgiveness, I transformed into the closure that I lost when I learned about the tragedy of all of us. I lost it when I learned about the tragedy of all of us.”
Good Luck Everybody (2019)
“If you don't give it to them they'll starve to death and that's alright.”
“I've got the normalization blues, this isn't normal, this isn't good.”
“I'm detached and I'm distracted, all keyed up but unproductive, vacillating between being all excited and disgusted and then dozing lackadaisically in this bubble where I've made my mental home. Connection's more important now than it ever was, but I'd rather be alone.”
“And when we talk about the president, we're either pissed off or we're giggling about an atrocity he's committing or some stupid shit he's tweeting. He's a symptom and a weapon of the evil men who really run the show. The ones who melt down human beings into money like a cruel Sorcerer's Stone.”
“This is the golden age of dickotry, probably the last golden age of anything, and the ugliest word in the English language is anthropocene. Good luck, everybody. Good luck.”
“But before that, you'll be a doormat, for every vicious narcissist in the world. Oh how they'll screw you, all up and over, then feed you silence for dessert.”
“I'm sorry that you have to have a body, filled with infection, one hundred scabs singing in unison, eyes and hands, sometimes bullets, uninvited, passing through us.”
“Oh to be awake for such a shitty dream. A bullet in the head of every decent thing.”
“The lake of dead black children that America created is getting fuller than the founding Fathers even wanted. The ghost of great America was underestimated and now it rages like a cold sore on the lip of this dumb nation. Again we've slipped inside a pit of absolute despair. That's where we live.”
“Rewarding our worst cruelty, they destroyed our shared reality, and now they upsell us our dignity like some fucked VIP package.”
“There is no absolute, these days there's no such thing as truth and you don't need to be a dick about it.”
“I'm a burnout and a fool, oblivious to all I do. I move my lips when I read and breathe with my mouth open, wide open. Timid, meek, and cruel, this is the best that I can do. I need to speak my truth, yet here I'm broken wide, wide open. My resentment, big and strong, and all the things that I can't change. They'll buckle me beneath the weight. I will drive myself insane with all the things that I can't change. I hate all the things that I can't change.”
“You're a loudmouth and a tool, and as it turns out I am too, and you don't need to be a dick about it.”
“Because I know that you know what I need more than me and I know that you need me more than that.”
“For all the pussies you grab and the children you lock up in prison, for all the rights you roll back and your constant stream of racism, for all the poison you drip in my ear, for all your ugly American fear. I wrote you this beautiful song called Psychic Warfare.”
“I hate you with all of my heart. I hate you with all of my art.”
“I went back to the desert, little Midwest in me, and now I am colder than I used to be. I live in a fortress the shape of my body, and now there's a coldness, and it's shaped like me. Now I don't suffer any more bullshit gladly. Even though everything's bullshit now, here in 2019 and you can bet it's gonna be a bunch of bullshit too out in sweet 2020 or whenever this album's released.”
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