Debris Love Quotes

On the off chance that you have children, don't clean up at all. As children, my brother and sister and I loved waking up early and playing cocktail party with the leftover debris

Sometimes I would see them not as mementos of the blissful hours but as the tangible precious debris of the storm raging in my soul.

Every last souvenir of the love we had, the prizes & the debris of this relationship, like the glitter in the gutter when the parade has passed, all the everything & whatnot kicked to the curb.

Love is like a tide. When it's in, everything looks beautiful and inviting. Only when love recedes can you see the debris beneath the surface - the old bottles, the rusty prams, the sewage pipes, the bloated cats and dogs weighted down to drown. The man I had once loved so passionately I now saw as weak, gutted like a fish.

Shinji slowly fell forward onto his face. Debris bounced up on impact. It took less than thirty seconds for the rest of his body to die. The memento of his beloved uncle--the earring worn by the woman he loved--was now stained with the blood running down Shinji's left ear, reflecting the glow from the red flames of the farm building. And so the boy known as the Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was dead.

You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you’ve found life. I’m no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are ‘yours’ and which are ‘mine.’ It’s past sorting out.

Physicists say we are made of stardust. Intergalactic debris and far-flung atoms, shards of carbon nanomatter rounded up by gravity to circle the sun. As atoms pass through an eternal revolving door of possible form, energy and mass dance in fluid relationship. We are stardust, we are man, we are thought. We are story.

Life seems like a long shipwreck, of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love; the shores of existence are strewn with them.

A song of despair The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars and the flights accumulated. From you the wings of the song birds rose. You swallowed everything, like distance. Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank! In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on. Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. There was the black solitude of the islands, and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms! How terrible and brief my desire was to you! How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid. Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired. And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. And the word scarcely begun on the lips. This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! From billow to billow you still called and sang. Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel. You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank! It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. Deserted like the wharves at dawn. Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!

i cried because i was full of dead stars and broken debris, but you still called me beautiful.

but you looked at me like i was your whole universe. i cried because i was full of dead stars and broken debris, but you still called me beautiful.

mingling with the remains of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belonging, home.

When they sat beside me, my hand in their hands, my own suffering began to feel like it had revealed to me the suffering of others, a world of those who, like me, are stumbling in the debris of dreams they thought they were entitled to and plans they didn't realize they had made.

Everything that motivates living creatures is based on some weakness or flaw. Hunger motivates animals. Lust motivates animals. Fear and pain motivate animals. A God would have none of those impulses. Humans are driven by all of our animal passions plus loftier-sounding things like self-actualization and creativity and freedom and love

As much as evil and mercenary selfishness never fail to rear their ugly heads-- sowing destruction in all directions-- so, too, do love and beauty never fail to emerge from the debris. Amid the chaos, there is always something that grows.

Love me this first day of June. I'd rather sleep with ashes than priestly wisdom. Of all the lonely places in the world this is best where debris is human. I kiss the precious ashes that fall from fiery flesh. On these familiar shapes I lay my kisses down.

Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ... Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. (1834)

Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she didn't make…. Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on—how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn that they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskin to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life. I'm no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are 'yours' and which are 'mine.' It's past sorting out. We're both being someone new now, someone incredible….

And there, far ahead of me, running by the side of the road, a human. The low sun stretched his shadow out one hundred times taller than him. Cole St. Clair, running alongside the wolves, side-stepping debris on the roadside every so often and sometimes jumping the ditch for a few strides and then back again. He held his arms out for balance as he leaped, unself-conscious, like a boy. There was something so fiercely big about the gesture of Cole running with the wolves that it made the last thing I said to him ring in my ears.

She knew it the way people say they know they are about to be hit by lightning, yet remain powerless to run, unable to avoid their fate. She panicked, as anyone might have when disparate parts of her life were about to crash into each other, certain to leave a path of anguish and debris. It was true that devotion could be lost as quickly as it was found, which was why some people insisted that love letters be written in ink. How easy it was for even the sweetest words to evaporate, only to be rewritten as impulse and infatuation might dictate. How unfortunate that love could not be taught or trained, like a seal or a dog. Instead it was a wolf on the prowl, with a mind of its own, and it made its own way, undeterred by the damage done. Love like this could turn honest people into liars and cheats, as it now did…

and you want us to love one another you can shape me from my ashes from the debris of my guffawing from my leftover tedium you can gorgeous you can seize me by the hair of forgetting embrace my night in an empty shirt kiss my echo well you dont know how to love

The debris of her married life was enough to sever the tie between reality and dreams, the fine line between desire and temptation. Where did she draw the line? When did she admit defeat and surrender?

I’m passing the bar Where you first got in my car I’m not ashamed to admit That it’s you I won’t forget I saved your cigarettes and Bad habits I regret But the hours flew by like clouds Whenever I had you around Parachute lover Take me away From the plane that went crashing And the earth that’s in flames Saving you is saving me High above the redwood trees But down below I see shadows And parachute debris We're drifting like children Along for the ride Each time we find love Another parachute arrives Our madness will burn As bright as the sun And I’ll keep finding lovers But you were the one

That love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you become common. To you nature seems something hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us.

We left this love in ruins, wreckage and debris. A ghost of our former glory, artifacts of what used to be.

Of Ruin and Renewal We are souls Of ruin and renewal Sorting through the rubble Of our painful past. We are souls Of ruin and renewal Waiting for the dust To settle at last We are souls Of ruin and renewal Searching for eyes that see us And walk through the debris We are souls Of ruin and renewal, We rebuild, we revive, We repurpose our own story.

Renunciation Suzuki Roshi said, “Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, but accepting that they go away.” Everything is impermanent; sooner or later everything goes away. Renunciation is a state of nonattachment, acceptance of this going away. Impermanence is, in fact, just another name for perfection. Leaves fall; debris and garbage accumulate; out of the debris come flowers, greenery, things that we think are lovely. Destruction is necessary. A good forest fire is necessary. The way we interfere with forest fires may not be a good thing. Without destruction, there could be no new life; and the wonder of life, the constant change, could not be. We must live and die. And this process is perfection itself.

Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives for her are reasonable.

I don't wish for the red house back, not really, yet in a way, I wish for everything back that ever was, everything that once seemed like forever and yet has vanished . . . Standing here on an empty hilltop in New Hampshire, as a bulldozer slowly pushes the debris of a small red house into a neat pile, I allow, just for a moment, the past to push hard against the walls of my heart. Being alive, it seems, means learning to bear the weight of the passing of all things. It means finding a way to lightly hold all the places we've loved and left anyway, all the moments and days and years that have already been lived and lost to memory, even as we live on in the here and now, knowing full well that this moment, too, is already gone. It means, always, allowing for the hard truth of endings. It means, too, keeping faith in beginnings.

True forgiveness for me has been and is a progression of faltering baby steps through a storm of flying debris.

stumbling in the debris of dreams they thought they were entitled to and plans they didn’t realize they had made.

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

Stumbling out of the debris cloud, I ran smack into Jules. "What the hell did ya do?" she asked in exasperation. "I mean, I only left ya alone for thirty minutes and---" "Not me, Boss!" I gasped, coughing up some drywall. "Monique. Rei. Schoolhouse-rumble." "Oi," Jules said, face-palming. "For the love of the spirit, what for?" I dusted myself off. "Street cred, yo. Street cred.

When she wished for love, she wanted a perfect concoction of - respect, care and understanding. You dusted kisses, and hoped she would find all those in the debris. Love, my dear, is more mental than physical.

A naturalist should look at the world with warm affection, if not ardent love. The life the scalpel has ended ought to be honored by a caring, devoted appreciation for that creature’s unrepeatable individuality, and for the fact that, at the same time, strange as this may seem, this life stands for the entire natural kingdom. Examined with attention, the dissected hare illuminates the parts and properties of all other animals and, by extension, their environment. The hare, like a blade of grass or a piece of coal, is not simply a small fraction of the whole but contains the whole within itself. This makes us all one. If anything, because we are all made of the same stuff. Our flesh is the debris of dead stars, and this is also true of the apple and its tree, of each hair on the spider’s legs, and of the rock rusting on planet Mars. Each minuscule being has spokes radiating out to all of creation. Some of the raindrops falling on the potato plants in your farm back in Sweden were once in a tiger’s bladder. From one living thing, the properties of any other may be predicted. Looking at any particle with sufficient care, and following the chain that links all things together, we can arrive at the universe—the correspondences are there, if the eye is skillful enough to detect them. The guts of the anatomized hare faithfully render the picture of the entire world. And because that hare is everything, it is also us. Having understood and experienced this marvelous congruity, man can no longer examine his surroundings merely as a surface scattered with alien objects and creatures related to him only by their usefulness. The carpenter who can only devise tabletops while walking through the forest, the poet who can only remember his own private sorrows while looking at the falling snow, the naturalist who can only attach a label to every leaf and a pin to every insect—all of them are debasing nature by turning it into a storehouse, a symbol, or a fact. Knowing nature, Lorimer would often say, means learning how to be. And to achieve this, we must listen to the constant sermon of things. Our highest task is to make out the words to better partake in the ecstasy of existence.

What does it mean to feel something similar to the way God feels? Is that like saying a pebble is similar to the sun because both are round?” he responded. “Maybe God designed our brains to feel love the same way he feels it. He could do that if he wanted to.

From his vantage point in Ruchill Park, Laidlaw looked out over the city. He could see so much of it from here and still it baffled him. ‘What is this place?’ he thought. A small and great city, his mind answered. A city with its face against the wind. That made it grimace. But did it have to be so hard? Sometimes it felt so hard…It was a place so kind it would batter cruelty into the ground. And what circumstances kept giving it was cruelty. No wonder he loved it. It danced among its own debris. When Glasgow gave up, the world could call it a day.

Last Night’s Moon," “When will we next walk together under last night’s moon?” - Tu Fu March aspens, mist forest. Green rain pins down the sea, early evening cyanotype. Silver saltlines, weedy toques of low tide, pillow lava’s black spill indelible in the sand. Unbroken broken sea. — Rain sharpens marsh-hair birth-green of the spring firs. In the bog where the dead never disappear, where river birch drown, the surface strewn with reflection. This is the acid-soaked moss that eats bones, keeps flesh; the fermented ground where time stops and doesn’t; dissolves the skull, preserves the brain, wrinkled pearl in black mud. — In the autumn that made love necessary, we stood in rubber boots on the sphagnum raft and learned love is soil–stronger than peat or sea– melting what it holds. The past is not our own. Mole’s ribbon of earth, termite house, soaked sponge. It rises, keloids of rain on wood; spreads, milkweed galaxy, broken pod scattering the debris of attention. Where you are while your body is here, remembering in the cold spring afternoon. The past is a long bone. — Time is like the painter’s lie, no line around apple or along thigh, though the apple aches to its sweet edge, strains to its skin, the seam of density. Invisible line closest to touch. Lines of wet grass on my arm, your tongue’s wet line across my back. All the history in the bone-embedded hills of your body. Everything your mouth remembers. Your hands manipullate in the darkness, silver bromide of desire darkening skin with light. — Disoriented at great depths, confused by the noise of shipping routes, whales hover, small eyes squinting as they consult the magnetic map of the ocean floor. They strain, a thousand miles through cold channels; clicking thrums of distant loneliness bounce off seamounts and abyssal plains. They look up from perpetual dusk to rods of sunlight, a solar forest at the surface. Transfixed in the dark summer kitchen: feet bare on humid linoleum, cilia listening. Feral as the infrared aura of the snake’s prey, the bees’ pointillism, the infrasonic hum of the desert heard by the birds. The nighthawk spans the ceiling; swoops. Hot kitchen air vibrates. I look up to the pattern of stars under its wings.

Love? Do you mean love in the way you understand it as a human?” “Well, not exactly, but basically the same thing. I mean, love is love.” “A brain surgeon would tell you that a specific part of the brain controls the ability to love. If it’s damaged, people are incapable of love, incapable of caring about others.” “So?” “So, isn’t it arrogant to think that the love generated by our little brains is the same thing that an omnipotent being experiences? If you were omnipotent, why would you limit yourself to something that could be reproduced by a little clump of neurons?

The product of causes ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms, that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand ...

My soul is no different from a Lotus flower. I didn’t start my journey in fresh water because my environment was not pleasant. Just like a Lotus flower, my life was surrounded by insects, debris, and so many unpleasant things and people. However, just like the Lotus petals are never contaminated by the murky water, my core remained pure. Just like the Lotus flower, I came from a place of suffering. However, I remained true to myself. I have overcome many obstacles in my life. I am proud of myself—because this time, I jumped a little higher over the hurdles. I have finished the never-ending race. I have officially crossed the finish line and have a fresh start! I am renewed, and I am loved!

Although it is easy to imagine happiness as the upwards turn on this haphazard rising and falling of emotion which is life, but really it is a foundation of strength of character and inner balance that precipitates peace, a foundation that is slowly built or slowly chipped away. There are times when it may seem that the foundation of happiness is broken, but as the dust settles and the debris is cleared away, we find that the storm has only covered it, still leaving everything we have built in place. True happiness is forged in the furnace of perseverance, fortitude, hope and love. It is not burned or broken by the heat, rather it is made unbreakable—it becomes eternal. Life is the fuel for this purifying fire.

The Kena Upanishad says that the Self "shines through the mind and senses," which is a poetic way of saying that it is the power of the Self which allows the mind and senses to function. So the eternally conscious Self is what makes us conscious. Essentially, it is light. At times when our inner vision becomes pure enough to let us see through the layers of psychic debris that thickens our consciousness and make it opaque, we realize that everything is actually made of light. We understand that we are light, that the world is light, and that light is the essence of everything. This is why so many people's experience of touching the Self are experiences of light - visions, inner luminosity, or profound and crystalline clarity.

Sabina placed The Firebird on the phonograph. The delicate footsteps of the Firebird were heard at first through infinite distance, each step rousing the phosphorescent sparks from the earth, each note a golden bugle to marshal delight. A jungle of dragon tails thrashing in erotic derisions, a brazier of flesh-smoking prayers, the multiple debris of the stained glass fountains of desire.

How could she love someone she barely knew? A year ago she would have said it was impossible: love was a choice people made daily and longevity was its measure. Love did not crash land in your living room leaving you squinting into daylight, picking through the debris of your former life. Only now could she see that it was sometimes a phantom thing, a stray that wandered the periphery of your life and moved in the minute you opened the door for who knew how long?

If you close your mind to the endless possibilities of dreams yet to be fulfilled, and allow your heart to grow cold, merely due to the fear of it being broken yet again . . . When the time is right, how will one then be able to see you for you & accept you for all that you are? You will not know from where, exactly when, or even how. When it comes to happiness, it is what it is! It will be there without any notice at all ~ If you open your eyes & seek out that strength within you to continue forever forward, will yourself to carry on & allow yourself to be vulnerable, imagine the possibilities! The pale colors of the horizon just prior to that evening storm will suddenly appear brighter! And as you find yourself gazing upon the leaves dancing in a whirlwind with all the debris and foliage amongst the trees . . . in that single moment, it's almost as if you could actually hear the wind whispering to your soul 'Let me in, I'm wanting only to warm your heart.

The night sky is filled brimful as a night sky can be, lit brightly as it is with clusters of planets and pulsating stars and marriages of galaxies, all of it within a wobble of dust and gas and debris unseen. There are the Dippers Little and Big tonight, a lovely Pleiades, and a throbbing red star out like a tiny heart. This is the stuff of which we are made, I say to Son, all that is of us above us. We stand together looking upward, our mouths hung open as if to swallow what's above down and into us. Looking out at the past in its far distance, where from there, he we are not.

Also – for there had been more than a few migrants aboard, yes, quite a quantity of wives who had been grilled by reasonable, doing-their-job officials about the length of and distinguishing moles upon their husbands’ genitalia, a sufficiency of children upon whose legitimacy the British Government had cast its ever-reasonable doubts – mingling with the remnants of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother-tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belonging, home.

Exiting the building, we shield our eyes with our hands and raise our voices. The wind has really picked up and is sending dirt, dust and debris airborne. A few windblown pedestrians, struggling to walk down the sidewalk, appear as though they might get blown away. I ask Tiger where he wants to go. "ANYWHERE…I DON'T CARE. AS LONG AS IT'S NOT FAR." "LET'S GRAB A CAB. WE CAN'T WALK IN THIS." As I open the backdoor of a Yellow Cab parked at the curb, the cabbie turns and gives me a mean look. "Are you the Floro's?" he asked. Tiger follows me into the backseat, as I answer- That we are. Tiger asked, "And you are?" The cabbie grunts- "ALEXANDER the fuck'n GREAT.

bombs poured down from the sky exploding across trachimbrod in bursts of light and heat those watching the festivities hollered ran frantically they jumped into the bubbling splashing frantically dynamic water not after the sack of gold buy to save themselves they stayed under as long as they could they surfaced to seize air and look for loved ones my safran picked up his wife and carried her like a newlywed into the water which seemed amid the falling trees and hackling crackling explosions the safest place hundreds of bodies poured into the brod that river with my name I embraced them with open arms come to me come I wanted to save them all to save everybody from everybody the bombs rained from the sky and it was not the explosions or scattering shrapnel that would be our death not the heckling cinders not the laughing debris but all of the bodies bodies flailing and grabbing hold of one another bodies looking something to hold on to my safran lost sight of his wife who was carried deeper into me by the pull of the bodies the silent shrieks were carried in bubbles to the surface where they popped PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE the kicking in zosha’s belly became more and more PLEASE PLEASE the baby refused to die like this PLEASE the bombs came down cackling smoldering and my safran was able to break free from the human mass and float downstream over the small falls to clearer waters zosha was pulled down PLEASE and the baby refusing to die like this was pulled up and out of her body turning the waters around her red she surfaced like a bubble to the light to oxygen to life to life WAWAWAWAWAWA she cried she was perfectly healthy and she would have lived except for the umbilical cord that pulled her back under toward her mother who was barely conscious but conscious of the cord and tried to break it with her hands and then bite it with her teeth but could not it would not be broken and she died with her perfectly healthy nameless baby in her arms she held it to her chest the crowd pulled itself into itself long after the bombing ceased the confused the frightened the desperate mass of babies children teenagers adults elderly all pulled at each other to survive but pulled each other into me drowning each other killing each other the bodies began to rise one at a time until I couldn’t be seen through all of the bodies blue skin open white eyes I was invisible under them I was the carcass they were the butterflies white eyes blue skin this is what we’ve done we’ve killed our own babies to save them

Once upon a time There was a friend Who poured some ink To a pen, which had been dried up Since then There are pages, and books Cluttered by scribbling With or without a meaning When the ink was done Scribbling started In the earth, dust covered In the tranquil grounds of the temple And in the naked skies Among floating clouds Mesmerized by the dawn of love On top of mountains Like a fairy spreading her wings On fluttering wings of butterflies In paths, under the starry skies On piano keys, playing without a tune On sprays of vibrant blooms Even without a sweet fragrance Even among the debris, pungent flowing down the drain Among the eyes filled with emptiness Walking down the streets, In the battle field, drenched with blood Waiting for a flying bullet, which brings death…. There is a poem Each and every moment Each and every day! (Translated by Manel K R Fernando)

They peer from beyond Glasses of locked cupboards, They stare longingly For months we do not meet The evenings once spent in their company Now pass at the computer screen. They are so restless now, these books- They have taken to walking in their sleep They stare longingly The values they stood for Whose batteries never died out Those values are no more found in homes The relationships they spoke of Have all come undone today A sigh escapes as I turn a page The meanings of many words have fallen off They appear like shrivelled, leafless stumps Where meaning will grow no more Many traditions lie scattered Like the debris of earthen cups Made obsolete by glass tumblers Each turn of the page Brought a new flavour to the tongue, Now a click of the finger Floods the screen with images, layer upon layer That bond with books that once was, is severed now We used to sometimes lie with them on our chest Or hold them in our lap Or balance them on our knees, Bowing our heads as in prayer Of course, the world of knowledge still lives on, But what of The pressed flowers and scented missives Hidden between their pages, And the love forged on the pretext Of borrowing, dropping and picking up books together What of them? That, perhaps, shall no longer be!

But here’s the tricky part about compassion and connecting: We can’t call just anyone. It’s not that simple. I have a lot of good friends, but there are only a handful of people whom I can count on to practice compassion when I’m in the dark shame place. If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm. We want solid connection in a situation like this—something akin to a sturdy tree firmly planted in the ground. We definitely want to avoid the following: The friend who hears the story and actually feels shame for you. She gasps and confirms how horrified you should be. Then there is awkward silence. Then you have to make her feel better. The friend who responds with sympathy (I feel so sorry for you) rather than empathy (I get it, I feel with you, and I’ve been there). If you want to see a shame cyclone turn deadly, throw one of these at it: “Oh, you poor thing.” Or, the incredibly passive-aggressive southern version of sympathy: “Bless your heart.” The friend who needs you to be the pillar of worthiness and authenticity. She can’t help because she’s too disappointed in your imperfections. You’ve let her down. The friend who is so uncomfortable with vulnerability that she scolds you: “How did you let this happen? What were you thinking?” Or she looks for someone to blame: “Who was that guy? We’ll kick his ass.” The friend who is all about making it better and, out of her own discomfort, refuses to acknowledge that you can actually be crazy and make terrible choices: “You’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad. You rock. You’re perfect. Everyone loves you.” The friend who confuses “connection” with the opportunity to one-up you: “That’s nothing. Listen to what happened to me one time!

As a country, as a people, have we changed? On the surface we might appear to have done so, but underneath I think we are still the same. Our change is measurable, but not significant. We remain bent on destroying ourselves. We still kill each other with alarming frequency and for foolish reasons, and we begin the killing at a younger age. We have much to celebrate, but we live in fear and doubt. We are pessimistic about our own lives and the lives of our children. We trust almost no one. “It is the same everywhere. We are a people under siege, walled away from each other and the world, trying to find a safe path through the debris of hate and rage that collects around us. We drive our cars as if they were weapons. We use our children and our friends as if their love and trust were expendable and meaningless. We think of ourselves first and others second. We lie and cheat and steal in little ways, thinking it unimportant, justifying it by telling ourselves that others do it, so it doesn’t matter if we do it, too. We have no patience with the mistakes of others. We have no empathy for their despair. We have no compassion for their misery. Those who roam the streets are not our concern; they are examples of failure and an embarrassment to us. It is best to ignore them. If they are homeless, it is their own fault. They give us nothing but trouble. If they die, at least they will provide us with more space to breathe.” His smile was bitter. “Our war continues, the war we fight with one another, the war we wage against ourselves. It has its champions, good and bad, and sometimes one or the other has the stronger hand. Our place in this war is often defined for us. It is defined for many because they are powerless to choose. They are homeless or destitute. They are a minority of sex or race or religion. They are poor or disenfranchised. They are abused or disabled, physically or mentally, and they have forgotten or never learned how to stand up for themselves.

I do not know if this is love or what love is or if love's a thing, if it can be worn like an old coat, or felt like harsh fabric on naked flesh, or if it is a sensation, like that first time the brakes of my bike failed while riding downhill or the climax of masturbation, or if love is an invention, and we all manufacture our own versions - some bright, some dull, some marbled, but all with labels and stickers that say: this is love. I do not know what love is or if I can say what I think love is, could be or should be. If we were to ever sit on the marble floor, on one of those dry, electricity free, 45 degree Delhi nights, sharing a drink of Old Monk's and I were to tell you that this is love, slap me for I would either be drunk or a liar. and if i were drunk, I won't be drunk on love or your loving for I don't know what love is or if it can be known. Maybe, one night, after thirty years of searching for what love means, we will sit outside - you and I - amidst the debris of our meanderings, our bent backs resting on the rusted iron railing, our skin pimpled, throats scratched from prayers uttered to absent gods and we would be in love and believe that love is this: love is all the spaces, non-events, the unspoken words and everything in between the first second of these thirty years to this. Love is this.

I do not know what love is I do not know if this is love or what love is or if love's a thing, if it can be worn like an old coat, or felt like harsh fabric on naked flesh, or if it is a sensation, like that first time the brakes of my bike failed while riding downhill or the climax of masturbation, or if love is an invention, and we all manufacture our own versions - some bright, some dull, some marbled, but all with labels and stickers that say: this is love. I do not know what love is or if I can say what I think love is, could be or should be. If we were to ever sit on the marble floor, on one of those dry, electricity free, 45 degree Delhi nights, sharing a drink of Old Monk's and I were to tell you that this is love, slap me for I would either be drunk or a liar. and if i were drunk, I won't be drunk on love or your loving for I don't know what love is or if it can be known. Maybe, one night, after thirty years of searching for what love means, we will sit outside - you and I - amidst the debris of our meanderings, our bent backs resting on the rusted iron railing, our skin pimpled, throats scratched from prayers uttered to absent gods and we would be in love and believe that love is this: love is all the spaces, non-events, the unspoken words and everything in between the first second of these thirty years to this. Love is this.

Khairey ba waley darta na kram Toora topaka woranawey wadan korona Guns of Darkness! Why would I not curse you? You turned love-filled homes into broken debris

Love is not for one's own vanity. It is not the paint that adorns a facade Nor is it to be feigned in order elevate one's own lot Love is the immersion of oneself into that of another being. To see oneself in another. The recognition of both unity and hierarchy underneath each carefully constructed identity or appearance. It is an understanding that causes one to say, 'that too, is me or could very well be me.' To listen with complete awareness and give attention to another's story. To share and care for well-being in the face of your own. Clearing debris in the path so that we all could walk it with more clarity and ease. To me that is love.

Love is not for one's own vanity. It is not the paint that adorns a facade Nor is it to be feigned in order elevate one's own lot Love is the immersion of oneself into that of another being. To see oneself in another. The recognition of the unity underneath each carefully constructed identity or appearance. It is an understanding that causes one to say, "that too, is me or could very well be me." To listen with complete awareness and to give attention to another's story. To share and care for well-being in the face of your own. Clearing debris in the path so that we all could walk it with more clarity and ease. To me that is love.

Love is not for one's own vanity. It is not the paint that adorns a facade Nor is it to be feigned in order elevate one's own lot Love is the immersion of oneself into that of another being. To see oneself in another. The recognition of both unity and hierarchy underneath each carefully constructed identity or appearance. It is an understanding that causes one to say, 'that too, is me or could very well be me.' To listen with complete awareness and give attention to another's story. To share and care for well-being in the face of your own. Clearing debris in the path so that we all could walk it with more clarity and ease. It is is something that seeks form and definition but can only be felt.

Love is not for one's own vanity. It is not the paint that adorns a facade Nor is it to be feigned in order elevate one's own lot Love is the immersion of oneself into that of another being. To see oneself in another. The recognition of both unity and hierarchy underneath each carefully constructed identity or appearance. It is an understanding that causes one to say, 'that too, is me or could very well be me.' To listen with complete awareness and give attention to another's story. To share and care for well-being in the face of your own. Clearing debris in the path so that we all could walk it with more clarity and ease. It is freedom which is the highest joy It is is something that seeks form and definition but can only be felt.

Love is something that seeks form but can only be felt Love is not for one's own vanity. It is not the paint that adorns a facade Nor is it to be feigned in order elevate one's own lot Love is the immersion of oneself into that of another being. To see oneself in another. The recognition of both unity and hierarchy underneath each carefully constructed identity or appearance. It is an understanding that causes one to say, 'that too, is me or could very well be me.' To listen with complete awareness and give attention to another's story. To share and care for well-being in the face of your own. Clearing debris in the path so that we all could walk it with more clarity and ease. To me that is love

Love is not for one's own vanity. It is not the paint that adorns a facade Nor is it to be feigned in order elevate one's own lot Love is the immersion of oneself into that of another being. To see oneself in another. The recognition of both unity and hierarchy underneath each carefully constructed identity or appearance. It is an understanding that causes one to say, 'that too, is me or could very well be me.' To listen with complete awareness and give attention to another's story. To share and care for well-being in the face of your own. Clearing debris in the path so that we all could walk it with more clarity and ease. It is freedom ultimate joy We seek it in form and definition but it can only be felt.

We are too often told that anger is an unhealthy emotion, but when someone or something has stolen your soul and destroyed your life, anger is a natural response. I am not talking about irrational rage, which can be disastrous and lead you down an even darker hole. I am talking about controlled anger, which is a natural source of energy that can wake you the fuck up and help you realize that what you went through wasn’t right. I have cracked open anger several times. It has warmed me when I was freezing, it has turned my fear into bravery, and it has given me fight when I had none. And it can do the same for you. Anger will snap you out of the spell you’re in until you are no longer willing to remain confined in your mental prison. You’ll be scratching and clawing at the walls, looking for cracks where the light leaks in. Your fingernails will be broken, the tips of your fingers bloody and raw, and you will continue to fight to expand those cracks because your anger will be purifying and the human mind loves progress. Keep at it, and eventually, those walls will tumble until you are free, standing in a debris field one more time, with your eyes wide open. That’ll work. Because destruction always breeds creation.

A Doorway Opens October 13 AT ITS HEART, I think, religion is mystical. Moses with his flocks in Midian, Buddha under the Bo tree, Jesus up to his knees in the waters of Jordan: each of them responds to something for which words like shalom, oneness, God even, are only pallid, alphabetic souvenirs. “I have seen things,” Aquinas told a friend, “that make all my writings seem like straw.” Religion as institution, as ethics, as dogma, as social action—all of this comes later and in the long run maybe counts for less. Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat, to put it mildly, or with the bush going up in flames, the rain of flowers, the dove coming down out of the sky. As for the man in the street, any street, wherever his own religion is a matter of more than custom, it is likely to be because, however dimly, a doorway opened in the air once to him too, a word was spoken, and, however shakily, he responded. The debris of his life continues to accumulate, the Vesuvius of the years scatters its ashes deep and much gets buried alive, but even under many layers the tell-tale heart can go on beating still. Where it beats strong, there starts pulsing out from it a kind of life that is marked by, above all things perhaps, compassion: that sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside another’s skin and for knowing that there can never really be peace and joy for any until there is peace and joy finally for all. Where it stops beating altogether, little is left religiously speaking but a good man, not perhaps in Mark Twain’s “the worst sense of the word” but surely in the grayest and saddest: the good man whose goodness has become cheerless and finicky, a technique for working off his own guilts, a gift with no love in it which neither deceives nor benefits any for long.

Here it is,” Daisy said, producing a needle-thin metallic shard from her pocket. It was the metal filing that Annabelle had pulled from Westcliff’s shoulder when exploding debris had sent bits of iron flying through the air like grapeshot. Even Lillian, who was hardly disposed to have any sympathy for Westcliff, winced at the sight of the wicked-looking shard. “Annabelle told me to throw this into the well and make the same wish for Lord Westcliff that I did for her.” “What was the wish?” Lillian demanded. “You never told me.” Daisy regarded her with a quizzical smile. “Isn’t it obvious, dear? I wished that Annabelle would marry someone who truly loved her.” “Oh.” Contemplating what she knew of Annabelle’s marriage, and the obvious devotion between the pair, Lillian supposed the wish must have worked. Giving Daisy a fondly exasperated glance, she stood back to watch the proceedings. “Lillian,” her sister protested, “you must stand here with me. The well spirit will be far more likely to grant the wish if we’re both concentrating on it.” A low laugh escaped Lillian’s throat. “You don’t really believe there’s a well spirit, do you? Good God, how did you ever become so superstitious?” “Coming from one who recently purchased a bottle of magic perfume—” “I never thought it was magic. I only liked the smell!” “Lillian,” Daisy chided playfully, “what’s the harm in allowing for the possibility? I refuse to believe that we’re going to go through life without something magical happening. Now, come make a wish for Lord Westcliff. It’s the least we can do, after he saved dear Annabelle from the fire.” “Oh, all right. I’ll stand next to you—but only to keep you from falling in.” Coming even with her sister, Lillian hooked an arm around her sister’s slim shoulders and stared into the muddy, rustling water. Daisy closed her eyes tightly and wrapped her fingers around the metal shard. “I’m wishing very hard,” she whispered. “Are you, Lillian?” “Yes,” Lillian murmured, though she wasn’t precisely hoping for Lord Westcliff to find true love. Her wish was more along the lines of, I hope that Lord Westcliff will meet a woman who will bring him to his knees. The thought caused a satisfied smile to curve her lips, and she continued to smile as Daisy tossed the sharp bit of metal into the well, where it sank into the endless depths below.

A person’s what they fear and what they love.

When we returned to camp, Steve insisted I sit down and not lift a finger while he cooked me a real Aussie breakfast: bacon and sausage with eggs, and toast with Vegemite. This last treat was a paste-like spread that’s an Australian tradition. For an Oregon girl, it was a hard sell. I always thought Vegemite tasted like a salty B vitamin. I chowed down, though, determined to learn to love it. As the sun rose in full, Steve began to get bored. He was antsy. He wanted to go wrangle something, discover something, film anything. Finally, at midmorning, the crew showed up. “Let’s go,” Steve said. “There’s an eagle’s nest my dad showed me when I was just a billy lid. I want to see if it might still be there.” Right, I thought, a nest you saw with Bob years ago. What are the chances we’re going to find that? John looked longingly at the dam. “Thought we might have a tub first,” he said. The grime of the desert covered all of them. “Oh, I think we should go,” I said hastily, the cow carcass fresh in my mind. “You don’t need a bath, do you, guys?” “Come on,” Steve urged. “Wedge-tailed eagles!” No rest for the weary. “So, Steve,” I said as gently as I could, not wanting to dissuade him as we headed out. “How old were you when Bob took you to see this nest?” “Must’ve been six,” he said. More than two decades ago. I stared around at the limitless horizon. I had my doubts. I watched Steve’s eyes dart across the landscape. He struck out in a particular direction and led us over a series of jump-ups. Then he’d get his bearings and head off again. One hour. Two hours. If someone had put a gun to my head I could not have led them back to the dam. “I think I know where it is,” Steve said abruptly. We continued on a little farther. Sure enough, in the distance I saw an unusually large eucalypt. In its main fork was what appeared to be a thick pile of debris and sticks, carefully laid together, that must have been eight feet thick. There it was, an eagle’s nest, twenty feet off the ground.

She stood there, staring down at the floor, trembling in anger and pain. All the ghosts of her pasts screaming in her face right along with him. She was only needed when being used. Needed to meet somebody else’s needs. Needed to connect one dot to the next. A piece of debris to be stepped on so that others could get to some place happy. She was never wanted or needed because she wasn’t worth keeping and loving.

Love, like Justice, is blind, but only Love is mad and impetuous and shouldn’t ever be trusted to wield a sword; it causes only more harm, leaving hearts and lives lying broken and bleeding in Love’s debris. Do the dead and wounded, I wonder, weep for the ones left behind to pick up the pieces? Or is it a penance they are destined to pay? God alone knows the answers.

If change is what you're after, unify your broadcast and quit muddying up the signals with thoughts that contradict your preferences. The experience of happiness, love and abundance is actually the default Life design. It's already available. You just need to clean out the debris that's blocking your view.

realizes a huge metal tray cart has overturned. The floor is piled with plastic trays and debris. The moment of shock evaporates. People help the cafeteria workers pull the cart upright and slide trays back into the racks. Last night’s shotgun blast tramples through Adrian’s thoughts. The

This" Today, my love, leaves are thrashing the wind just as pedestrians are erecting again the buildings of this drab forbidding city, and our lives, as I lose track of them, are the lives of others derailing in time and getting things done. Impossible to make sense of any one face or mouth, though each distance is clear, and you are miles from here. Let your pure space crowd my heart, that we might stay awhile longer amid the flying debris. This moment, I swear it, isn’t going anywhere.

The homes of so many skeletons. People who used to fight over the last blueberry muffin at the breakfast table, get down on their knees to scrub bathroom floors, and kiss one another good night, thinking they were at least relatively safe. Now they are just dust in the debris.

...Once the rain subsides and the wind drifts we're left with the shattered debris of what transpired.

It is important that they are cleaned and cared for properly to ensure they’ll last use after use. To clean them, first rinse the cloth well to remove excess debris. Machine wash them only with other microfiber cloths (they will pick up particles from regular laundry), using gentle, bleach-free laundry detergent and cool water on a regular cycle, or hand wash with dish soap in warm water and rinse thoroughly. Don’t use fabric softener or dryer sheets with these cloths; they will clog the fibers and render the cloth ineffective. It is best to hang them to dry or place in the dryer on low heat.

Tragedy can demolish like an explosion – swift and indiscriminate and crushing and painful. But sometimes, for some people, what remains after the rubble of confusion has had a chance to settle is an amazing clarity. Suddenly, all the obstructions and debris and pointless minutia of our life are wiped away, and for those who can open their minds, there are new, important vistas to take in, and a different way to look at the world.

There were ornaments she had loved and paintings she had chosen. Books she’d read, or would never finish, photographs which had smashed from their frames as they’d hit against the metal. Photographs she had dusted and cared for, of people who were clearly no longer here to claim themselves from the debris. It was so quickly disposed of, so easily dismantled. A small existence, disappeared. There was nothing left to say she’d even been there. Everything was exactly as it was before. As if someone had put a bookmark in her life and slammed it shut.

I’m a bit harder to love than most people. It’s because I grew up with ghosts at my home and fallen debris. I turned myself into an armor of steel, so I would be protected from slashes and whips and people like you who might break me.

You married?" Quinn shook his head. "Divorced?" "Once. A long time ago." So long ago, the brief attempt at marriage seemed more like a half-remembered bad dream than a memory. Bringing it up was like kicking a pile of ashes, stirring old flecks of emotional debris inside him-feelings of frustration and failure and regret that had long since gone cold.

Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and move some of the debris or knock down the cobwebs that have amassed in your life and your faith over time.

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.25

Without You Everything Is Hideous How are you? , sweetheart, here I am writing these letters and your thought does not leave me and here you are still the closest to me since that day, which did not end until now. I scatter my letters in front of your beautiful eyes to tell you that I am wrong and guilty ; Although I have not forgotten you for a moment, even while I am trying to convince myself that everything is finished from your point of view, but I make up for it and say well, this is enough for me to try to snatch her icy heart again, this heart that loved me with all sincerity that innocent childish heart that never hated One even over the one who is because of him has left me for a long time due to false suspicion I remember all your letters, so I read them from time to time How nice it was to call me a childish nickname - capturing like your cheeks a happy nickname. You didn’t know all my reasons, sweetie I indirectly told you about the biggest reason when I told you to read “So Forgive Me ”You are the most beautiful thing that has happened to me since I knew you. My beauty, today I want to tell you that you forgot something one day. You asked me: Have you loved before? So I told you : Yes I did it was a long time ago when I was a teenager; I never thought that I would love again after I was wounded by that deep wound, when I was left alone, the wolves of loneliness and separation scattered me, and no one comes to me to pull me from the bottom of the debris that happened in my heart, And to be honest, I was not afraid for myself as much as I feared for your tender heart; I don’t ever want to be the lover who leaves his lover, especially if it is you. My beautiful woman, I wanted to make sure that my heart never beats for anyone but you It’s not easy, believe me I admire you since we became close, since we started speaking in the innocent language of children, since you used to say to me you are late to respond, even if I was late for a few seconds since night became for us a second day we talk about it until dawn and more Since you were quarreling with others trying to make them understand my point of view. How delicious days were when you looked at me from a distance and smiled, and when I heard your laughter as much as I was jealous, my heart beat with joy All your conditions were beautiful even when you quarreled with me I am not here trying to tell you that I am innocent, I am not I hurt you many times but I swear it was not with intent They were rather fleeting and spontaneous things. I admit that I have hurt your pride and here I am now bearing the consequences of this matter, and I swear it is not an easy thing. But, my flower, when you told me that excuse to stay away from me for three months, it smashed me, how can someone take my moon from me? The one that shone my eyes and melted the ice around my heart after my heart became so attached to her that I became so addicted to her that when I talk to any girl I call her by your name. My little girl I lost my love previously, and I do not want to lose you, because I know that you are a twin of my soul, even if you deny this now, but in the depths of your heart you know the validity of this matter. I apologize for every moment that made you think with pain I just wanted to protect you from fleeting feelings or just those feelings that were attracted to you And I know you crave someone to love you just because you are beautiful I wanted to protect you from the feelings of a teenager And if it was a year or less late to reveal it You know that valuable things no matter how late they are, their value will be better, finer, sincere and thinner, and you deserve strong, sincere feelings that stem from the depths of the heart and from the depths of the soul feelings befitting you I see in you all the beauties in life And without you, everything is Hideous You have all my feelings, beautiful cheeks.

People came and went from Connor's life like the pebbles one finds on the shore: turned continuously by the tide, or tossed firmly back into the ocean by the man himself. When he was younger, Connor had filled his pockets with all kinds of stones, big ones, grey ones, ones with tiny crystals and stripes. His shore had been bright, and vibrant, and he rushed to meet the tide every morning. Now, Connor’s arms were tired, his head heavy from the drugs, and his pockets were full of other things besides rocks. When Jack had rolled along, a stranger to those lonely, forgotten sands, everything had flipped on its axis. Suddenly, he was the pebble, spat out in white foam, a modest, lump of rock that any jaded person might have kicked along. Jack had been different. He had reached down, amongst the water’s debris and sticky sand, and plucked Connor from that shore. He had weighed Connor in his palm, turned him this way and that, and curved his fingers into his grooves and bumps. Whatever Jack saw in him that day, on that metaphorical spit of sand, Connor must have met his approval.

The jellycrusts, scorning the protection of travelling within armoured trucks, walked in the dry lands in ragged groups, pushing or dragging their belongings in carts or sledges. Their skins were concealed by thick, insulating gel once manufactured for military use. Since then, the jellycrusts had bought up all the remaining stocks of the stuff, slapping it on their own integrement, where it accumulated the dust and debris of the desert lands; hence their nickname. It reminded Leila of certain larval creatures who once lived in freshwater streams, and which perhaps still did somewhere, who attached stones and water rubbish to their skins, making a shell to live in. The jellycrusts could look like that: frightening, peeling, gaunt creatures. She used to wonder whether they ever washed it all off and started again from a clear skin. Did they make love? It was not a pleasant image. The gel had a strange smell, rather like a room that had been locked up too long; a wooden room beaten by sunheat, rotted by rain, stale and with the promise of hidden corruption. Jellycrusts always wore bulky, colourless clothes, quasi-military in appearance, heavily adorned with totemic ornaments, constructed from the desert trash.

It is that inner atmosphere that has An unfamiliar gravity or none at all Where words are flung out in the air but stay Motionless without an answer, Hovering about one’s lips Or arguing back to haunt The memory with what one failed to say, Until one learns acceptance of the silence Amidst the new debris Or turns again to grief As the only source of privacy, Alone with someone loved.

Dear Lotus Flower, Just like you, my roots were always latched in the mud. I envied you because you were in the dark, murky water only at night—when the daylight arose, you bloomed. Unlike you, I was submerged in nasty water every day and night, but the light abandoned me. Came the morning light, and somehow miraculously, you rebloomed, sparkling, and so clean. I sort of bloomed at night with the moonlight and stars. However, the next morning I wasn’t so lucky because the morning light was nowhere to be found. Things got better for me slowly but surely. I must say, no matter how many times our roots were in the dirtiest water, we survived. We survived because our roots provided the nutrients that allowed us to bloom. I read that a lotus flower at times only partially opens, and the center is hidden. Just like you, there were times when I slowly opened up to people. I hid my inner core because mentally, I didn’t know who to trust. However, I arose from the midst of suffering. Again, just like you, I withstood highly adverse conditions and had to repair myself mentally and physically. Nobody knows, but you are my favorite flowers. We are unique, and we have so much in common. Your shadowy, murky origin found enlightenment as you were on the hunt for light. I, too, was on the quest for light for many years. For 16 years, I was thirsty for light, and now my thirst is quenched. All of those years, I yearned and wanted to break free and bloom. However, I had to keep moving, growing, and believing. My soul is no different from a Lotus flower. I didn’t start my journey in fresh water because my environment was not pleasant. Just like a Lotus flower, my life was surrounded by insects, debris, and so many unpleasant things and people. However, just like the Lotus petals are never contaminated by the murky water, my core remained pure. Just like the Lotus flower, I came from a place of suffering. However, I remained true to myself. I have overcome many obstacles in my life. I am proud of myself—because this time, I jumped a little higher over the hurdles. I have finished the never-ending race. I have officially crossed the finish line and have a fresh start! I am renewed, and I am loved! Triumph should be my middle name because I never gave up.

Happiness attracts debris as something new sometimes.

A spirit of practicality had come to her aid. It was only human. When the earthquake stops, when the flood recedes, when the volcanic dust settles or the guns fall silent, the survivors pick their way through the rubble and debris and wreckage. A chair leg here, a first communion certificate or a bundle of love letters there. The flotsam and jetsam of the old ways―the ways that will never return.