you need a lover who can set you free…

We need wild, free souls in love and friendship, the kind who are not afraid to bite us into awakening and feeling. We need to stand tall in our full-blown humanity, vulnerable and passionate, willing to jump in with another and take the fall.

We need to be that openness.

Let us not be afraid of revealing ourselves as we are, because we are cosmic miracles. Let us not shrink back upon being truly seen, but grow taller and swell wider with the pulse of life… Let us abandon ourselves to the pleasure of discovering another human being and to the pleasure of being discovered.

Why does this matter? Because we are never as guarded as when we are seeing someone who lights a spark within us—and there is never a better time to lay our guards down and speak our soft, sweet truth, backed by nothing but the infinite depth and yearning of our hearts.

We must become each other’s wild souls. We must howl to the moon in freedom and let our hearts speak out loud to pinch us back to life, to remind us that we are not the masks we put on; we are infinitely more. We must stop playing at the game of love and start loving instead.

   —Stefania Chihaia

hours continuing long…

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,

Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and un-frequented
spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my
hands;

Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding
swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or
pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;

Hours discouraged, distracted—for the one I cannot content
myself without, soon I saw him content himself without
me;

Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are pass-
ing, but I believe I am never to forget!)

Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed—but it is useless
—I am what I am;)

Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have the
like, out of the like feelings?

Is there even one other like me—distracted—his friend, his
lover, lost to him?

Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, de-
jected, thinking who is lost to him? and at night, awak-
ing, think who is lost?

Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor
his anguish and passion?

Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name,
bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?

Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he
see the face of his hours reflected?

— Walt Whitman —