We live by waters breaking out of the heart. —Anne Carson

   

no image source, sadly

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the invisible walls,

the rotten masks that divide one man

from another, one man from himself,

they crumble

for one enormous moment and we glimpse

the unity that we lost, the desolation

of being man, and all its glories,

sharing bread and sun and death,

the forgotten astonishment of being alive

—Octavio Paz

Sunstone (Piedra de Sol) excerpt

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There isn’t time - so brief is life - for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account.

There is only time for loving - and but an instant, so to speak, for that.


—Mark Twain
in a letter to Clara Spaulding
20 August 1886

 

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If the world gives you the blues, if you wake up in the middle of the night with waves of fear and senseless panic washing over you, I am your friend. 

If you're overcome by a desperation that makes your mouth open for a scream that never comes out but just freezes your face in mute despair, then you and I have something in common. 

If you can't understand them for the life of you, even though you've tried so hard, when that dislocation makes you feel like you're the only one of your species on the planet, I know I can confide in you. 

If this endless ghetto of lies and heart break, this life-long run of fences and flickering neon signs, night sweats and suicidal urges makes you feel like stopping, just stopping, like stopping breathing, wait. Wait. 

You don't have to tell me your name. You don't have to prove yourself to me. I accept you. If you're finding life to be the one thing that's trying to kill you, I want you to stay alive to rise with the sun and fight back.


—Henry Rollins
Solipsist

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You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry. —Frida

    

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I want a trouble-maker for a lover; 
blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame. 

Who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate. 

Who burns like fire on the rushing sea. 


—Rumi

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I want a soul mate who can sit me down, 
shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. 

I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. 
And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. 
I will nibble your mukluks with my own teeth.

I will do your windows.
I will care about your feelings. 
Just have something in there.


—Henry Rollins

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When you find a man
Who transforms

Every part of you
Into poetry,

Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,

When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,

I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,

It is not important
That you belong to me or him

But that you belong to poetry.


—Nizar Qabbani
Bassam K. Frangieh and 
Clementina R. Brown version

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Find that flame, that existence,
That wonderful woman
Who can burn beneath the water. 

No other kind of light
Will cook the food you
Need.


—Hafiz 

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