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Brick wall Quote by Jeffrey McDaniel

“Mathematicians still don’t understand the ball our hands made, or how your electrocuted grandparents made it possible for you to light my cigarettes with your eyes. It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the window to leave six ounces of orange juice and a doughnut by the bed, or me becoming the…” quote by Jeffrey McDaniel
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““Mathematicians still don’t understand the ball our hands made, or how your electrocuted grandparents made it possible for you to light my cigarettes with your eyes. It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the window to leave six ounces of orange juice and a doughnut by the bed, or me becoming the sand you dug your toes in, on the beach, when you wished to hide them from the sun and the fixed eyes of strangers, and your breath broke in waves over my earlobe, splashing through my head, spilling out over the opposite lobe, and my first poems under your door in the unshaven light of dawn: Your eyes remind me of a brick wall about to be hammered by a drunk driver. I’m that driver. All night I’ve swallowed you in the bar. Once I kissed the scar, stretching its sealed eyelid along your inner arm, dried raining strands of hair, full of pheromones, discovered all your idiosyncratic passageways, so I’d know where to run when the cops came. Your body is the country I’ll never return to. The man in charge of what crosses my mind will lose fingernails, for not turning you away at the border. But at this moment when sweat tingles from me, and blame is as meaningless as shooting up a cow with milk, I realise my kisses filled the halls of your body with smoke, and the lies came like a season. Most drunks don’t die in accidents they orchestrate, and I swallowed a hand grenade that never stops exploding.””

Jeffrey McDaniel

About This Quote

Source Poem: Untitled, author’s collection, 2023

A surreal, erotic confession intertwining desire, violence, and existential longing, using vivid metaphor to explore intimacy and self‑destruction.

In simple terms: Intense, chaotic love and self‑destruction.

Key Takeaway

Embrace vulnerability, recognize destructive patterns.

Themes

desire destruction identity intimacy existentialism

Mood

passionate conflicted intense

Type

poetic confessional

When to use this quote

  • nightclub encounters
  • intimate moments
  • creative writing
  • personal crisis
  • self‑analysis

Key Concepts

surrealism metaphor psychosexual self‑reflection

Questions to Reflect On

  • What does the speaker truly seek in this tangled intimacy?
  • How does violence serve as a metaphor for love?
A Different Perspective

The extreme imagery may obscure emotional truth for some readers.

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