Promises And Pomegranates Quotes

You cannot love a person fully without knowing the darkness etched into their soul.

Anyone who touched her will die.

I’m not like the boys from your little private schools. I’ll ruin you and not think twice about it.’ ‘So ruin me,’ I’d said, so confident in my ability to withstand it.

Maybe Hades was lonely too, and he brought Persephone to his realm because he knew she’d bring the light with her.

You don’t ever look anywhere else when you come on my tongue, little one. Eyes on me, and my name on those pretty lips.

Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, What can I do to kill it and be free?

How I’d drag her to the depths of Hell but convince her she’d gone to Heaven, using my tongue to write wordless poetry on her sensitive, swollen flesh.

you cannot love a person fully without knowing the darkness etched into their soul i want to know his so well it becomes my darkness too.

Control that narrative. That way you control the story.

Without her, I feel like one half of a soul, existing aimlessly, waiting for the earth to reclaim me the way I have so many others.

But then I realized, monsters aren’t capable of returning love. And the longer you spend chasing it from someone who cannot ever give it back, the more of a monster you become in turn.

You’re warm and comfortable where you are now. Safe, even. It’s terrifying, trying to find courage to take a leap of faith, but you can’t spend eternity hiding. Eventually, you have to take the opportunities that are thrust upon you, and trust that the universe knows what it’s doing.

Yes, Jesus, please. Right there.” “No saviors here,” he says, teeth grazing my forehead. “Just me, your husband, dragging you to Hell with him.” If this is Hell, lock me up and throw away the key.

There’s something magical in the act of holding another’s life in your hands. A kind of symmetry found in nature, where you’re given the opportunity to bring beasts to grisly fates or heal them instead.

You’re going nowhere, my little Persephone. I didn’t bring you back to my island just so you could leave, and I’m certainly not relieving you of your sentence. You’ll serve it at my goddamn side as the queen of my little underworld, and all your family will ever be able to do is watch.

Rahab pondered the thought. “I don’t suppose a pomegranate or a fig as an offering would have the same effect on our hearts. To see an innocent life taken in our place is much more humbling than offering Adonai fruit.

I learned I quite enjoy the taste of brutality on my tongue. Love the way it blossoms like a flower springing from the earth, igniting a compulsion like no other.

An overdose of insulin would be the easiest, cleanest route—especially since he keeps his meter and pens in the top right drawer of his desk, unprotected.

If Elena is even half as divine as the fruit in the Garden of Eden, I absolutely understand Eve’s surrender.

We must bring our own light to the darkness.”  ― Charles Bukowksi

How about I introduce you to the inside of a casket?” I say, unhooking my gun from where it’s strapped at my waist, cocking the pistol

You can’t conquer what doesn’t fear you, and with us, it’s always been the other way around.

I’m going to ruin her, and every time she bleeds for me, I’m going to think about how she likes everything you didn’t.

Would that prove to you that this marriage is real?” he asks, his thumb smoothing back and forth over my mangled flesh. “If I took you again? Was the first taste of ruin not enough for you? Do you still crave my darkness, little one?

Witter Bynner’s

Because that’s what happiness is. The people you find along the way who make life a little more bearable. And once you find them, you don’t let them go.

All the ways I’d treat her right, if I could. If there wasn’t too much for me to lose. If I thought I could actually love her, and not just use her as a pawn in my twisted games.

I remember that pomegranate well- the leathery red skin, the fleshy weight of it in my hand promising wine-sweet clusters of ruby fruit. As I lifted it off the pile, I imagined the satisfying crunch, the release of tangy perfume, the juices glazing my lips and running down my chin. Ah, that biblical fruit with its poignant umbilical tip, choice of the gods and food of the dead.

I knew from the second I laid eyes on you, that you were a force to be reckoned with. There was immediately so much strength and tenacity, and fire in your beautiful eyes, present in your lungs every time you cried. I worked overtime to undermine any potential advantage you could have over me.

I swear to God, up until this very moment, I’ve never believed in soul mates. Never thought myself worthy of having one, figuring that whoever would be unlucky enough to get stuck as mine would probably just avoid me altogether.

She’d say humans are made up of energy, and that energy has a certain magnetism to it that attracts both what we fear and what we desire, and that it was up to us to reflect the kind of life we wanted to the universe so it would be able to deliver.

she'd say humans are made up of energy, and that energy has a certain magnetism to it that attracts both what we fear and what we desire, and that it was up to us to reflect the kind of life we wanted to the universe so it would be able to deliver.

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

Losing her never felt like being dismembered, or having the blood drained right from your body, creating a loneliness unlike anything I’ve ever known. It never felt like spending your life as a sinner and finally getting a taste of Heaven, only to have it ripped right out from beneath your fingertips. But it takes a woman like Elena to elicit feelings like that. It requires kindness, and warmth, not the kind of fires lit just for the hell of it, but the kind of flames that flourish with passion and understanding and just a touch of darkness. It’s her innate goodness that makes the loss fucking unbearable.

We can take things as slowly as you want, but you know it’s too late now to change your mind, Pierce,” he said, in a warning tone. “Of course,” I said. I could see I had approached this all wrong. Where, when you actually needed one, was one of those annoying women’s magazines with advice on how to handle your man? Although that advice probably didn’t apply to death deities. “Because the Furies are after me. And I promised you that I wouldn’t try to escape. That isn’t what I was-“ “No,” he said, with an abrupt shake of his head. “The Furies have no part in this. It doesn’t matter anymore whether or not you try to escape.” He was pacing the length of the room. A muscle had begun to twitch wildly in the side of his jaw. “I thought you knew. I thought you understood. Haven’t you read Homer?” Not again. Mr. Smith was obsessed with this Homer person, too. “No, John,” I said, with forced patience. “I’m afraid we don’t have time to study the ancient Greek poets in school anymore because we have so much stuff to learn that happened since you died, such as the Civil War and the Holocaust and making files in Excel-“ “Well, considering what they had to say about the Fates,” John interrupted, impatiently, “Homer might possibly have been of more use to you.” “The Fates?” The Fates were something I dimly remembered having been mentioned in the section we’d studied on Greek mythology. They were busybodies who presided over everyone’s destiny. “What did Homer have to say about them?” John dragged a hand through his hair. For some reason, he wouldn’t meet my gaze. “The Fates decreed that anyone who ate or drank in the realm of the dead had to remain there for all eternity.” I stared at him. “Right,” I said. “Only if they are pomegranate seeds, like Persephone. The fruit of the dead.” He stopped pacing suddenly and lifted his gaze to mine. His eyes seemed to burn through to my soul. “Pomegranate seeds are what Persephone happened to eat while she was in the Underworld,” he said. “That’s why they call them the fruit of the dead. But the rule is any food or drink.” A strange feeling of numbness had begun to spread across my body. My mouth became too dry for me to speak. “However you feel about me, Pierce,” he went on, relentlessly, “you’re stuck here with me for the rest of eternity.

When they had gone less than a bowshot from the shore, Drinian said, “Look! What’s that?” and everyone stopped. “Are they great trees?” said Caspian. “Towers, I think,” said Eustace. “It might be giants,” said Edmund in a lower voice. “The way to find out is to go right in among them,” said Reepicheep, drawing his sword and pattering off ahead of everyone else. “I think it’s a ruin,” said Lucy when they had got a good deal nearer, and her guess was the best so far. What they now saw was a wide oblong space flagged with smooth stones and surrounded by gray pillars but unroofed. And from end to end of it ran a long table laid with a rich crimson cloth that came down nearly to the pavement. At either side of it were many chairs of stone richly carved and with silken cushions upon the seats. But on the table itself there was set out such a banquet as had never been seen, not even when Peter the High King kept his court at Cair Paravel. There were turkeys and geese and peacocks, there were boars’ heads and sides of venison, there were pies shaped like ships under full sail or like dragons and elephants, there were ice puddings and bright lobsters and gleaming salmon, there were nuts and grapes, pineapples and peaches, pomegranates and melons and tomatoes. There were flagons of gold and silver and curiously-wrought glass; and the smell of the fruit and the wine blew toward them like a promise of all happiness. “I say!” said Lucy. They came nearer and nearer, all very quietly. “But where are the guests?” asked Eustace. “We can provide that, Sir,” said Rhince.

But, like all other things, it snowballed out of control. I learned I quite enjoy the taste of brutality on my tongue. Love the way it blossoms like a flower springing from the earth, igniting a compulsion like no other.

Working for Rafael Ricci, the don of Boston’s—at one time—premier crime family was never supposed to be a permanent thing.

Until Elena. The most forbidden of fruits. Persephone to my Hades, as some used to call me.

The Asphodel used to be a hotel. I purchased it some years ago and renovated it into a residential property.” The Asphodel. How strangely fitting.

Bright, violet eyes stare back at mine, disapproval lining the extraordinary irises.

Until his twenty-first birthday, when he was arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate the owner of the island, Tom Primrose. After a brief stint in jail, during which he confessed to having ties to some secret organization, Aplana mostly shunned him, with a restraining order being taken out that didn’t allow him even within spitting distance of the Primrose mansion.

Among the criminal underground on the East Coast, Jonas Wolfe was evidently known for quick, traceless hits, and I made sure to make myself indispensable to him.

How she’d been sporting a few new bruises, ones I knew her fiancé had caused, and how I lost my fucking mind and showed up to demand she tell me what happened.

And despite the noisy, intrusive thoughts playing on repeat in my head as I leave the Asphodel with Jonas, my nervous system has never been more at ease.

Are you talking to yourself?” Marcelline calls from the window in the kitchen, close enough that she doesn’t have to scream. “Yes, Marcelline, I am. You won’t give me a guided tour so I’m making it up as I go along.

I know you like to keep a clean workspace,” she says. “Tools and everything.

Evidence of my evil deeds tattooed permanently into my skin.

Good. Remember this feeling the next time you decide to talk about my wife like she’s one of your little whores.

When Kal finishes several minutes later, brushing his forearm over his face and smearing blood over his cheek, I’m met by an intoxicating, complicated wave of arousal.

No saviors here,” he says, teeth grazing my forehead. “Just me, your husband, dragging you to Hell with him.

You were spring, and I the edge of a cliff, and a shining waterfall rushed over me,

If Elena is even half as divine as the fruit in the Garden of Eden, I absolutely understand Eve's surrender.

It is easy to ascribe the success of such hokum to the gullibility of another age, until we stop to reflect that the techniques successfully used to sell patent medicine are still routinely used today. The lotions and potions of our times inevitably promise youthfulness, health, or weight loss, thanks to exotic ingredients like antioxidants, amino acids, miracle fruits like the pomegranate and açaí berry, extracted ketones, or biofactors. There is scarcely a shampoo or lotion for sale that does not promise an extraordinary result owing to essence of coconut, or rosemary extracts, or another botanical. As devotees of technology we are, if anything, more susceptible to the supposed degree of difference afforded by some ingenious proprietary innovation, like the “air” in Nike’s sports shoes, triple reverse osmosis in some brands of water, or the gold-plating of audio component cables. For all our secular rationalism and technological advances, potential for surrender to the charms of magical thinking remains embedded in the human psyche, awaiting only the advertiser to awaken it.

the one I got when he started calling me his little Persephone, as if I might be able to reach him with the symbol.

irises.

I know about the little pomegranate tattooed beneath her breast, and have traced the line work myself with the tip of my tongue. She even tastes like the fruit, explosive and utterly bewitching; the kind of succulence you want to sink your teeth into. And fuck, did I.

Still, if Kal Anderson asked me to tear my bleeding heart out of my chest and serve it to him on a silver platter, I’d do it, no questions asked. I’d probably ask him to oversee the operation, to make sure I was doing it correctly.

If Elena is even half as divine as the fruit in the Garden of Eden, I absolutely understand Eve’s surrender,

As a child, I got used to silence.

I fell in love with the innate stillness of it--the calm it provides, the secrets you can wedge into the depths.

The Pomegranate Once when I was living in the heart of a pomegranate, I heard a seed saying, “Someday I shall become a tree, and the wind will sing in my branches, and the sun will dance on my leaves, and I shall be strong and beautiful through all the seasons.” Then another seed spoke and said, “When I was as young as you, I too held such views; but now that I can weigh and measure things, I see that my hopes were vain.” And a third seed spoke also, “I see in us nothing that promises so great a future.” And a fourth said, “But what a mockery our life would be, without a greater future!” Said a fifth, “Why dispute what we shall be, when we know not even what we are.” But a sixth replied, “Whatever we are, that we shall continue to be.” And a seventh said, “I have such a clear idea how everything will be, but I cannot put it into words.” Then an eight spoke—and a ninth—and a tenth—and then many—until all were speaking, and I could distinguish nothing for the many voices. And so I moved that very day into the heart of a quince, where the seeds are few and almost silent.

You're not my prisoner, but if you don't turn around and leave right now, I'll make you feel like one.

I would happily spend the rest of my life on fire if it meant getting to keep her.

Like a fucking flower deprived of the sun overnight, my heart opens up for him, seeking nutrients where maybe there are none.

his lips never once touched mine. Sure, they slid across every inch of my skin, caressed my most sensitive flesh, and spoke affirmations to my soul,

To him, Layla's promising aroma was not a reminder of a long-lost boyhood or the instigator of teenage lust. No, for Malachy, the sight of Layla's exotic profile filling up a bag of white onions was a sign, a resounding 'yes' to the age-old questions of the divine. Yes, there was a God. Yes, there was life beyond the sleepy valleys of Ballinacroagh. Yes, there 'were' undiscovered universes waiting just for him. And one of them was standing right before him, in all her astounding milky ways.

Her eyes blurred with tears as he kissed the part in the center of her hair. "I wasn't sure we'd have a chance to say goodbye," he said. "I leave this afternoon for the war in Nubia." When Luce lifted her head, Daniel cupped her damp cheeks in his hands. "Layla, I'll return before the harvest.Please don't cry. In no time you'll be sneaking back into my bedchamber in the dark of night with platters of pomegranates just like always. I promise." Luce took a deep, shuddering breath. "Goodbye." "Goodbye for now." His face grew serious. "Say it: Goodbye for now." She shook her head. "Goodbye, my love. Goodbye." The reed curtain parted. Layla and Don broke from their embrace as a cluster of guards with their spears drawn barreled into the room. Kafele led them, his face dark with rage. "Get the girl," he said, pointing at Luce. "What's going on?" Daniel shouted as the guards surrounded Luce and reshackled her hands. "I order you to stop. Unhand her." "Sorry,Commander," Kafele said. "Pharaoh's orders. You should know by now-when Pharaoh's daugher is not happy,Pharaoh is not happy." They marched Luce away as Daniel shouted, "I'll come for you,Layla! I'll find you!" Luce knew he would. Wasn't that how it always played out? They met, she got into trouble,and he showed up and saved the day-year in and year out across eternity,the angel swooping in at the last minute to rescue her.It was tiring to think about. But this time when he got there,she would have the starshot waiting. The thought sent a raw pain through her gut. A well of tears rose up inside her again,but she swallowed them. At least she had gotten to say goodbye.

Dis, almost in a moment, saw her, prized her, took her: so swift as this, is love.’ The Rape of Proserpine.

Auden’s Funeral Blues

You’d be surprised what people are willing to overlook when their needs are met, and then some.

It’s just that the ride is more like a roller coaster, and the theme park attendant isn’t letting me off.

I have this… condition. Misophonia. It’s a psychological aversion to certain sounds. Have you ever heard of it?” She shakes her head. “Most of the time, I keep it in check, but other times… it’s a lot. Sometimes, it’s downright debilitating, and I can’t focus on anything but the sound or the anxiety it gives me. Even after it dissipates, I’m still reeling from the episode, and I just… want to work from home, where I can regulate the stimuli I’m encountering. Not because I’m trying to avoid it, but if I can make my life easier, then I’m going to.” Nodding, she shrugs. “That makes sense.

You’re afraid of what waits for you on the other side of the soil. You’re warm and comfortable where you are now. Safe, even. It’s terrifying, trying to find courage to take a leap of faith, but you can’t spend eternity hiding. Eventually, you have to take the opportunities that are thrust upon you, and trust that the universe knows what it’s doing.

Why would he tell me to pack, just to take my things away?

I didn’t marry you so you could fuck around and get yourself killed, so when I tell you to do something, I expect you to listen. Don’t make me regret trying to protect you.

There are many things out there worse than me, little one. And it’s not a matter of if they come for you, but when.

That I’m no good to you if I’m dead. So, which is it? Did you marry me to save me, or to wield me like a weapon?

You’re not a weapon,” he says, his touch burning me from the inside out. “You’re a pawn. That ring on your finger makes you my pawn. Don’t forget that.

I’m not like the boys from your little private schools. I’ll ruin you and not think twice about it.

I’m in love with you, Elena.

I don’t want you to apologize to me for the way you coped with what life dealt you,” I say softly, “because I see nothing wrong with the way you are. A little rough around the edges, and far from perfect, but...” “Lucky,” he breathes, shaking his head again as if dislodging the range of emotions. “I’m fucking lucky, if you coming back to me is any indication.

That she came back to me. The beast’s beauty. Hades and Persephone.

And so, even though it feels like I’m skinning myself alive as I begin popping open the buttons on my shirt, I do it anyway.

Just an unlucky soul, who somehow has managed to cheat death over a hundred times.

Still, Elena. Think about it. Is a man like that ever blackmailed easily?

Instead, I head inside, order a long john, and settle in at one of the outdoor metal patio tables, pushing all my problems aside until I’ve finished eating.

Even as she sits there, her body devouring itself from the inside out, she’s trying to reassure me that everything is okay.

I’m not usually a gambler. Don’t like leaving my life in the hands of fate. But something about this woman makes me want to risk everything.

Wishing this could be the life someone like Elena deserves.

Are you okay? You seemed... tense, outside.” She glances at the spine of my book, cringing. “Uh-oh, Dorian Gray? I know you have some mileage on you, but honestly, thirty-two is young

How do you know Kal?” Shifting her eyes toward me, she smiles sadly. “I don’t.

and I have to grip on to the plastic armrests on my chair to keep from launching myself at him, and tearing his intestines through his asshole for even looking at her, after everything.

We don’t have to go over a lifetime of issues in one afternoon. Why don’t you start with what bothers you the most, not knowing?

But what it tells me, with us, is that you’re as fucking crazy as I am.

If you’re jealous, I’m a goddamn psychopath.

You make me want to spill every secret I’ve ever had, Elena. That’s not something that happens... well, ever. Not for me.

You get to live, because I don’t care enough to kill you.

My soul mate. My fucking queen. My little Persephone.

I don't have to see her eyes to know they're burning; I can feel them, licking down my chest, setting my soul ablaze, dousing me in kerosene as she steps back to admire the flames. I would happily spend the rest of my life on fire if it meant getting to keep her.