September 2008
65 posts
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“And this is my city under ashes. And these are my prophet’s staff and...”
– Wislawa Szymborska
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“How are you? Fine, and you? It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we’re...”
– Richard Siken
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“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell...”
– Richard Siken
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A year ago today, about an hour from now, a boy shook my hand, got me a chair, offered me some wine, put his jacket over my shoulders, and my life began.
I only had him for a little while. He’s with someone else now, and I haven’t seen him since June. I was lucky enough to have the indescribably perfect experience of hearing him say my name as little as six days ago. I’m...
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“I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here,...”
– Miranda July, “Ten True Things”
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“More important
than breakfast
is waking up next to someone
and having them...”
– Dallas Clayton
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“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
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“I took a shower and tried to catch my breath. You were lying on top of the...”
– Richard Siken
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I want you to see the hole in my shirt where your heart went through like a Colt 45, and opened a dream at the back of the neck. Here, let me unbutton it for you. Notice the ribs, those sweet things you loved, notice the insides, the parchment lampshades, the books, the furniture. Notice yourself sitting, holding my hand on a winter night, notice the look in my eyes, now close it all up and walk...
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“Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all forgiven,...”
– Richard Siken
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“Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.”
– Richard Siken
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“Who was I when I used to call your name?”
– Marie Howe, What the Living Do
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in the sun and in the rain and in the day and in the night pain is a flower pain is flowers blooming all the time.
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“A girl wrote a letter on an orange and placed it on a doorstep. That day the...”
– Naomi Shihab Nye
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“I still have to do everything I had to do before, without a secret hum inside.”
– Naomi Shihab Nye
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“You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart.”
– Richard Siken
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“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then...”
– Richard Siken
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“The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.”
– The Village
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“What if the world is filled with stories?”
– William Heyen
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“The puppet thinks:
It’s not so much
what they make me do
as their hands...”
– Charles de Lint
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“We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me...”
– Franz Kafka
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“The boy stayed away for a long time… and the tree was sad. And then one...”
– Shel Silverstein
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“I never have been a coward at heart, though I have always been a coward in...”
– Dostoevsky
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“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the...”
– Franz Kafka
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“Because grief unites us,
like the locked antlers of moose
who die on their...”
– William Matthews
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“The heart lies to itself because it must.”
– Jack Gilbert
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“I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of...”
– Richard Wagner
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“But the truth, the first truth, probably, is that we are all connected, watching...”
– Arthur Miller, Timebends
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WHAT I AM NOT
My brother and I used to play a game. I’d point to a chair. “THIS IS NOT A CHAIR,” I’d say. Bird would point to the table. “THIS IS NOT A TABLE.” “THIS IS NOT A WALL,” I’d say. “THAT IS NOT A CEILING.” We’d go on like that. “IT IS NOT RAINING OUT.” “MY SHOE IS NOT UNTIED!” Bird would yell. I’d point to my elbow. “THIS IS NOT A SCRAPE.” Bird would lift his knee. “THIS IS ALSO NOT A...
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“I am free and that is why I am lost.”
– Franz Kafka
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“I am nothing but a mass of spikes going through me.”
– Franz Kafka
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“For I once saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the...”
– Petronius, “The Satyricon”
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“Until, after a long, long time,
I’d be well again.
Then I’d like to live
And...”
– poem by a child in the Terezin ghetto
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“I thought about life, about my life, the embarrassments, the little...”
– Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
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“Fortune’s a wanton who never stays for long and her favor does not last. ...”
– Heinrich Heine
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“O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”
– Thomas Wolfe
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Brod's 613 Sadnesses
The following encyclopedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Shown below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary’s wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadnesses are lost forever, and it is...
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Hidden
If you place a fern under a stone the next day it will be nearly invisible as if the stone has swallowed it. If you tuck the name of a loved one under your tongue too long without speaking it it becomes blood sigh the little sucked-in breath of air hiding everywhere beneath your words. No one sees the fuel that feeds you.
- Naomi Shihab Nye
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Not Waving but Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he’s dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.
- Stevie...
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“I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
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“If I could, I would move mountains to reach you. You must know that. If you are...”
– J. L. Carrel
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Trying to Raise the Dead
Look at me. I’m standing on a deck in the middle of Oregon. There are friends inside the house. It’s not my house, you don’t know them. They’re drinking and singing and playing guitars. You love this song, remember, “Ophelia,” Boards on the windows, mail by the door. I’m whispering so they won’t think I’m crazy. They don’t know me that well. Where are you now? I feel stupid. I’m talking to trees,...
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“don’t hold out too long
if I don’t come in sweet summer
sometimes...”
– To You, Michael Davitt
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“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed...”
– Stephen Crane
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“In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the...”
– Stephen Crane 