Poppy Z.Brite

I was seventeen years old when I began, twenty-eight when they caught me. All the time I was in prison, 1 knew that if they ever let me out I would continue killing boys

The only constant thread running through my prison notebooks was a pervasive loneliness with no discernible beginning and no conceivable end. But a corpse could never walk away.

. Each had been someone's baby once. But so had I, and what good did it ever do me?

'What about this pet business? Are you going to let me put a leash and collar on you? Do I get to chain you up?

I met his gaze steadily as I slammed his head into the wall again, trying not to let my face contort, trying not to look angry or cruel. Most likely he was past knowing anything. But if he could still see me, I wanted him to know I wasn’t doing this because I hated him. Quite the contrary. Before, I had only seen him as a means to an end. But in these final moments of his life, I loved him.

It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.