can make you lose
the good thing.
each letter is truth…
I don’t know how to write love letters.
But I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you.Since I fell in love with you everything is transformed
and is full of beauty…
love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain.
You know, my sky, you rain on me
and I, like the earth, receive you.
— Frida Kahlo —
too often in life…
The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.
Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves-or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature.
Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what?
Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.
— Sophie Scholl —
talisman…
i write these words
quickly repeat them
softly to myself
this talisman for you
fold this prayer
around your neck fortify
your back with these
whispers
may you walk ever
loved and in love
know the sun
for warmth the moon
for direction
may these words always
remind you your breath
is sacred words
bring out the god
in you
— Suheir Hammad —
this freedom inside…
We should choose someone
because they make us come alive
with passion and feel empowered.
— Laura Brown —
the sight of the stars…
You appeared before me in my dreams;
as yet unseen, you were already dear.
Your wondrous gaze filled me with longing,
your voice resounded in my heart,
long ago… no, it wasn’t a dream!As soon as you arrived, I recognized you.
Have you not spoken to me in silence?
Have you not stooped gently at my bedside,
and whispered words of joy and love,
and whispered the words, “who are you?”My fate, I entrust to you.
I can wait, I can wait…
You are my terrible angel,
my beautiful tempter…What dark can come, when love is so light?
O, night is past,
everything is awake,
and the sun is rising…
lllllllllll— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky —
wide awake, on tiptoe…
They are patient and wise, these barely-feminine hands of mine. They seek. They know truth before I do – this is the scent they follow.
I cup your beautiful face. My hands guide me as words get lost in your eyes, in the thick lump that forms in my throat. As I trace, my fingers taste you, your fear, your need and your hunger. Along your jaw, over your lips, around your ears, sliding down and around your neck.
Something about your skin cradled against mine heats me – my cheeks, the nape of my neck, my soft soft cunt-folds. My caress guides us both to a resting place – a place beyond, sourced from a breath-like tremble.
I have been told that my hands are intoxicating but only when touching you, do I sense some of what that might mean. I’m almost afraid to touch you more – to learn you are less than you trust me to hold.
Already I feel the full force of being seen by one who will not fully choose me and in that same breath, I defy the shadow of all we cannot be.
roc…
We are come late to the love of birds
for we are come late to love.
Before we had been nothing:
a fossilized egg, a tired metaphor, old as mutton.
Now, the sharp twinge of middle age
and we are caught in love’s punctured balloon.
In banana peel sobriety.
Furred epithet, feathered lash.
We are come late to the mythology of love,
the beefheart stain of the great winged roc
upon the ground of our imaginings,
soft like the centres of some candies.
Soft like the quilted centres of our beds,
our quivering bird organs.
Give us the sweeping shadow,
down from the mountains of Araby.
Give us the claws that catch
us from the desert path, swoop us,
fat white sheep in the meadow,
into that prickled nest, high, up high.
— Sandra Kasturi —
a life in letters…
You are so dear, so wonderful. I think of you all day long, and miss your grace, your… beauty, the bright sword-play of your wit, the delicate fancy of your genius, so surprising always in its sudden swallow-flights towards north and south, towards sun and moon — and, above all, yourself.
— Oscar Wilde —
travellers…
In trains we need not choose our company
For all the logic of departure is
That recognition is suspended; we
Are islanded in unawareness, as
Our minds reach out to where we want to be.But carried thus impersonally on,
We hardly see that person opposite
Who, if we only knew it, might be one
Who, far more than the other waiting at
Some distant place, knows our true destination.
— Philip Larkin —
