“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget….Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
-Arundhati Roy
ICU
Peekaboo. Last game for a while.
I open my eyes, smile,
and see but cannot touch
your hands, the only part
awake while you sleep.
They’re picking apart the kite-string
of your life, even as you rise
out of reach
like a balloon, like a blessing.
I think you’re dreaming
of a distant beach
building castles for the waves to live in.
I see you’re
so quiet people’d think
you almost weren’t breathing
with the drip silent in your arm
a string about to fray
but I can’t see
for the life of me
the far-off
places
to which
you
stray
Boo, Forever
Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I’m haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you.
I Thought That I Could Not Be Hurt
I thought that I could not be hurt;
I thought that I must surely be
impervious to suffering-
immune to pain
or agony.
My world was warm with April sun
my thoughts were spangled green and gold;
my soul filled up with joy, yet
felt the sharp, sweet pain that only joy
can hold.
My spirit soared above the gulls
that, swooping breathlessly so high
o’erhead, now seem to to brush their whir-
ring wings against the blue roof of
the sky.
(How frail the human heart must be-
a throbbing pulse, a trembling thing-
a fragile, shining instrument
of crystal, which can either weep,
or sing.)
Then, suddenly my world turned gray,
and darkness wiped aside my joy.
A dull and aching void was left
where careless hands had reached out to
destroy
my silver web of happiness.
The hands then stopped in wonderment,
for, loving me, they wept to see
the tattered ruins of my firma-
ment
(How frail the human heart must be-
a mirrored pool of thought. So deep
and tremulous an instrument
of glass that it can either sing,
or weep).
My Heart
“I’m not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don’t prefer one “strain” to another.”
Do you ever in the midst of your failures and shortcomings envision an alternative world so appealing and so personal, that you cannot bear to encompass a reality in which your dreams do not come true?
Soliloquy of the Solipsist
I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it’s quite clear
All your beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.
"What you are is a complicated girl with simple needs. You need your books and time to read, and you need a few friends and you need someone-not to take care of you, but to care for you. If you have all those things, you’ll always be alright."
Brian Morton, “Breakable You” (via komad)
The difference is that we know.
"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives."
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
(Source: technojournee, via haereticum)
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
"You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realised the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid."
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Exactly.
“Oh shut up. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you hurt, you heal. After darkness, there is always light and you get reminded of this every morning but still you choose to believe that the night will last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Not the good or the bad. So you might as well smile while you’re here.”
Beyond the rough where not as much is good enough
