Alone

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

Edgar Allan Poe

Baby I need your loving

 

Miniatures

"Mother, my neck aches and all is still."

Orhan Pamuk, My name is red

“I seldom have as much pleasure in reading nonfiction as I do in a poem or a story. I can admire a well-made essay, but I’d rather follow a narrative than a thought, and the more abstract the thought the less I comprehend it. Philosophy inhabits my mind only as parables, and logic never enters it at all. Yet my grasp of syntax, which seems to me the logic of a language is excellent. So I imagine that this limitation in my thinking is related to my abysmal mathematical incompetence, my inability to play chess or even checkers, perhaps my incomprehension of key in music. There seems to be a firewall in my mind against ideas expressed in numbers and graphs rather than words, or in abstract words such as Sin or Creativity. I just don’t understand. And incomprehension is boredom.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, in Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books

Don't wanna know

 

 "Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?"

Orhan Pamuk, My name is red

When You Really Love Someone

"It don't make sense but it makes a good song"

Black Princess

Loss is a funny thing. 

It creeps up on you when you least expect it, surging up like a wave that never showed on the horizon: a sudden tide of the coldest feelings, beginning from the base of your stomach and ascending all the way up to your head, dizzy and breathless, surprised by the change of temperature your tears will cause. Unstoppable. If you're lucky, you've found someone to share it with, someone who will not ask questions when he sees the wave rippling its way over you, someone who will drop the grocery bags on the floor and hug you tightly, without a word, because you're drowning.

I'm trying my best not to think of you, to pretend you didn't exist, or that you still do, that you're just there behind the table, the black spot I catch out of the corner of my eye, wrapped up in your usual furry and grumpy self. Denial is not a fine balance, it's a eschewed state of suffering, caught between escaping the guilt and remembering someone we loved so much that we loved them daily, without big shows of affection or second thought, with every day grievances and a little bit of impatience. The kind of love that does not presuppose an ending, or that we cannot talk about with our friends, because they will not understand it. Without you, I feel more alone than I ever did - and although I know you're not coming back, I will keep leaving the back door open. Until one day (I hope soon) when I don't think of you anymore when I close it.

Loss is a funny thing.

Woman take it slow and it'll work itself out fine

 

 "When I share myself in the intimacy of love, I do not lose my identity into my lover, but the part I share reflects all of me"

Thomas P. Kasulis (quoted in "How the World Thinks", by Julian Baggini)

Fleabag

12.

Penso no que de parte pus
no que afastei de sobras, desperdícios, peles,
cordas, colas, pregos, pragas,
no dedo martelado

e sei agora
(ah, e quanto tempo passou
como a água da ponte
que vai a não sei onde!)
que o que de lado pus
era isso mesmo a ponte,
ponte para este concreto,
pobre mas definido,
sapato de quem o queira.

Pedro Tamen, in O Livro do Sapateiro, 2010

Don't put the blame on me

“And now you are
and I am
and we're a mystery
which will never happen again.”

Now All the Fingers of This Tree by e.e. cummings

About time

“There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.” 

Neil Gaiman, American Gods

 

“New tastes are like new ideas, young man - the older you get, the more difficult they are for you to stomach.”

Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire

Completas

A meu favor tenho o teu olhar

testemunhando por mim
perante juízes terríveis:
a morte, os amigos, os inimigos.

E aqueles que me assaltam
à noite na solidão do quarto
refugiam-se em fundos sítios dentro de mim
quando de manhã o teu olhar ilumina o quarto.

Protege-me com ele, com o teu olhar,
dos demónios da noite e das aflições do dia,
fala em voz alta, não deixes que adormeça,
afasta de mim o pecado da infelicidade.

Manuel António Pina