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[etherizedheart-blog]

"Come, tell me what it is that 

I have gained

From loving you,"

- Hafez, The Nightingales Are Drunk

[etherizedheart-blog]

Of those next hours I remember most the silences between her sobs, the rain against the skylight slowly weakening to silence, silence brimming into sleep and dawn. Then, having lain at last all night beside her, having searched at last that black-walled room, the last unopened chamber of my heart, and found there neither pity nor desire but an assortment of religious kitsch, I inched my arm from under her and left.

- Michael Donaghy, Black Ice and Rain

[etherizedheart-blog]

“How many losses does it take to stop a heart, to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?”

― Dorianne Laux, Last Words

[etherizedheart-blog]

Riding, riding, riding, through the day, through the night, through the day. Riding, riding, riding. And the heart has become so tired, and the longing so vast.

- Rilke, from "The Lay of the Love and Death of Christoph Cornet "

[etherizedheart-blog]

So he flees fearfully into the dream and stands in the park, lonely in the black park. And the feast is far. And the light lies. And the night is near about him and cool. And he asks a woman, who leans to him:

“Are you the night?”

- Rainer Maria Rilke, from "The Lay of the Love and Death of Christoph Cornet"

[etherizedheart-blog]

Two people in a room, speaking harshly. One gets up, goes out to walk (That is the man) The other goes into the next room and washes the dishes, cracking one. (That is the woman) It gets dark outside. The children quarrel in the attic. She has no blood left in her heart. The man comes back to a dark house. The only light is in the attic. He has forgotten his key. He rings at his own door. and hears sobbing on the stairs. The lights go on in the house. The door closes behind him. Outside, separate as minds the stars too come alight.

- Adrienne Rich, Novella

[etherizedheart-blog]

TIME does not bring relief; you all have lied    Who told me time would ease me of my pain!    I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side,    And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;    But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear    To go,—so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!”    And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

- Edna St. Vincent Millay, Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

[etherizedheart-blog]

"Now, sip your vodka, and then bite one of the peppers--see how the vinegar and the vodka war with one another? This is a rare thing. A winter thing.' Marya's throat thickened. She spoke around tears. 'You can taste summer in this mixture, summer boiled down and soaked in brine. Because that is life, Ivan. Jars on a shelf, bright colors under glass, saved up against the winter, against starving."

- Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

[etherizedheart-blog]

“It takes an ocean not to break.” 

- The National, from “Terrible Love”

[etherizedheart-blog]

come with every wound and every woman you’ve ever loved every lie you’ve ever told and whatever it is that keeps you up at night every mouth you’ve punched in all the blood you’ve ever tasted come with every enemy you’ve ever made and all the family you’ve ever buried and every dirty thing you’ve ever done every drink thats burnt your throat and every morning you’ve woken with nothing and no one come with all your loss your regrets, sins memories black outs secrets

come with all the rot in your mouth and that voice like needle hitting record come with your kind eyes and weeping knuckles come with all your shame come with your swollen heart i’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you.

-Warsan Shire, “first thought after seeing you smile”