Can I Tell You Something? Quotes

“Tickle me, stroke me, feed me, fuck me,
Overload my senses-- hug me, drug me.
It's hard, you see, to consider what's more,
When we hate to think and love the gin.
But until this pleasure dies, I will never live--
There has to be more to life than this.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“I wish I hadn't met you in the rain: it comes every winter.
I wish you hadn't told me your favorite wine: I've become a drinker.
I wish I never showed you my hidden birthmark:
It looks back at me at night asking where you are.
I wish I hadn't read you my journal, all the pages praising you,
It's corrupted now that I can't tell if I write for me or you.
I wish I hadn't told you my daily routine: it's not mine anymore.
I can't enjoy 11:11, my favorite song, a birthday cake, or a concert tour.
I'm not afraid of the future, it's the past that takes a while.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“I tried to book a flight to her mind, but I’m not on the list.
And now I’m terminal: I’m breathing brandy.
I’ve incorporated another tally mark on my wrist.
I get my vitamins in: colored capsules I call candy.

Life is just a bunch of dashes—
Interrupted sentences with no finish line.
But at least if you wet your eyelashes,
You can get a cinematic look in life.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“If I ask you to dance, you'll know I've been waiting
So instead, I will whistle in the cold under my umbrella,
Carrying a tune that I know you'd be hating,
Killing what I want the most in case it won't want me.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“When you see the extent to which people try, like the tremors of a ballet dancer, or the intensity of a pianist, or a mural containing the details of tiny little people making up the background-- you see the vulnerable extension of our private selves. There is an element inside us and it wavers between beauty and madness. You know it when you see it, like a hyperactive atom bouncing in a tube. It is like trying, really trying, and when we do, we are in our most honest forms. When we reach, we expose the contents of the human spirit. The more often we see it spill, the more encouraged we are to go further. And we can go further than others, in joyous competition. After all, it is called the human race, no?”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Just because they write something In this font
And break apart their lines
To rhyme
To dramatize
To imitate
Doesn’t make what they say true.
And quotations marks
Don’t make sentences “life conclusions.” A post, a page,
A billboard, or a wallpaper—
Let it swirl for a few
and if you want to spit it out,
V omit.
If you want to keep it,
Let it ride shotgun.
But argue with it first.
Debate.
Don’t simply accept it
Because you may
By accident
Accept a monster
Disguised
As a poem.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Goodbyes are hard because now all I will have
Is a beloved, but incomplete form of you.
You'll continue to shape and shift into a new person
And I'll be stuck here loving an old version.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“A kiss is more than a kiss.

If you have my lips, you have my thoughts,
My presence, questions, lessons I was taught.
That in my closed-eyed kisses with you,
Contained all my art, my lonely, my childhood too.

A kiss, I fear, is more than a kiss.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“They say you’re always at the place you need to be.
But perhaps it’s not so that we go to stay, but see to leave.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Just because they write something In this font
And break apart their lines
To rhyme
To dramatize
To imitate
Doesn’t make what they say true.
And quotations marks
Don’t make sentences “life conclusions.”
A post, a page,
A billboard, or a wallpaper—
Let it swirl for a few
and if you want to spit it out,
Vomit.
If you want to keep it,
Let it ride shotgun.
But argue with it first.
Debate.
Don’t simply accept it
Because you may
By accident
Accept a monster
Disguised
As a poem.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“There is no moving on, just moving with.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“I really don't know who has it worse:
The heartbreaker who guiltily draws the line--
The heartbroken convinced they are cursed--
Or the ghosts who watch it happen every time.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“A friend will soothe, like a cough drop smooth,
Making the symptoms of our condition not so bad.
You will soothe me, like a cough drop thick,
Making the pain go away while I'm still sick.
There's nothing we can do to close our interval,
But celebrate your flavor that makes a sore life bearable.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“I can't get myself to stay; I cannot enjoy the crowd,
But I hate that I hate it because I wish I could let go.
I'm all alone in this corner and their laughter is loud.
Well that's okay, I think I'll just go home.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Joy is a flower that pain grows best.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“I wrote a poem about happy times with a lady,
About how nice it feels to love and laugh like crazy,
But there is after all a pen in my hand and not her hair.
All happy stanzas have a sad air.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“I'm in my room, consuming, cyber, and confused.
I don't remember the last time I made something
Besides blunts, cum, minimum wage, bad grades, a noose.
Sometimes I know I'm just twiddling my thumbs in front of a screen,
That the songs about the money make me fake feel rich too.
That the porn gets weirder, life gets shorter, and I eat shit stew.
That these unrealistic characters I play make me feel strong.
That I'm screaming at plastic that did nothing wrong.
That I'm hurting and escaping and yearning and breaking.
That underneath this hole, I may actually have some flair.
Sometimes I'd like to leave my room and go see what's out there.
Would you like to go with me?”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Loneliness is an organ we call the brain,
So if you want out, good luck baby.

Go towards something. Foolishly.
The loneliness will eat us anyway,
But you can change how you taste:
A rock that never does
Or a twinkle that tried.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“All rich things look the same, but poor things always look different.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“A piece of plastic stole an entire species—
In lobbies, in the bathroom, in an elevator,
Ideas, reactions, and silent contemplations,
During lunchtime, during mass, during his funeral,
On the street, on break, on duty,
Before the waiter brings the food and after the check,
While the flight attendant bothers to request airplane mode,
While a trafficked victim speaks to you in code,
While the potential love of our life just walked past,
While mother cooks with a recipe we forgot to ask.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“It's weird how we behave how we look like, a sign they stole you.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“To hear her speak of the things she cares
Is the kindest gift, but task unfair.
For this is the first time I've battled whether 'tis
Wrong to silence a beloved mind with a kiss.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Our eyes see the future we desire
And if yearning is enough, turn blind entire
To any threats that challenge our hope.
Oh, how small indeed is Reality's scope.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“There is more in front: a timid, desperate cub
Locked in a fickle case, wounded and incoherent.
We are all that youngling, together in this cosmic hub,
And we are not alone in the universe, we are it.
But beware the pavement makes us only see the peachy—
We care about the diapered: the children and the old,
And anyone in between is just an asshole species.
The challenge is to see the little child through their cold
For we don’t grow at the same pace as our body.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Are you in there? If not here, then where'd you go?
They say the living arena Earth and the dead are out,
But where are those trapped in-between high and low?
Where exactly are you wandering about?

Why would this happen to a human being?
I want to curse God and call him a fake,
But I am too desperate to risk ruining
The chance he may choose to help today.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Curiosity has and will always conquer fear.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“Dried leaves that stomp on other dried leaves--
This is man.
Snails pretending to have tortoise shells--
This is man.

We're so good, aren't we, at saying we're not cold--
Assuring others even as we shiver and turn blue.
But I know you're lying, you might as well fold,
Because I'm pretending to be pink while shivering, too.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“We will always be tired, stressed,
Processing a tragedy, and/or a little hungry--
Like a wild animal, in the middle.
The soul comes to play in what we choose to do after.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“We're born accompanied; sacrifice is essential.
Their pain is real, my pleasure's potential.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?

“If all you have seen is the best of me,
I'm scared you won't like the rest of me.
I'm scared you'll love me only ten questions later.
Or worse, walk away disgusted after a thousand greater.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?