To live in this world you must be able to do three things
To love what you love
To hold it against your bones
As if your life depends on it
And when it is time to let it go
To let it go.
Mary Oliver
tip of the iceberg…
light up the darkness…
when i give i give myself…
Give me odorous at sunrise
a garden of beautiful flowers
where I can walk undisturbed.
— Walt Whitman —
last night i sang…
I’m fighting myself. I know I am.
One minute I want to remember.
The next minute I want to live in the land of forgetting.
One minute I want to feel.
The next minute I never want to feel again.
— Benjamin-Alire-Sáenz —
on lies, secrets, and silence…
An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
— Adrienne Rich —
we believed we could…
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 —