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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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.

Witter Bynner’s

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.

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.

I will take care of everything," I whispered, as if words might be enough to lure him back. I promised him that I'd open an Iraqi pastry shop. I lied. "We will sell the vanilla cake with pomegranate sauce, the date truffles, the cardamom cookies, the sharkrlama." All the things he loved. Things we had served night after night at the restaurant.

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.

I don’t see Kal anywhere, and the idea that I’ve actually been abandoned resurfaces, making my stomach cramp. Confusion solidifies in my psyche, rejection weaseling in and making me feel like an idiot. Just because he gives you his credit card and a couple of orgasms, doesn’t mean he’s interested in more.

Of course, he didn’t, because any conversation about her inevitably ends in admitting defeat where she’s concerned. She’s a lost cause, drifting out to sea while everyone chooses to look on.

How long after a traumatic event do you have to wait before you can face your demons?

Even the strongest glass cracks under enough pressure.

I’ve never been the kind of man to run from adversity, but as I stand there staring at the woman before me, the one I’ve dragged into my mess, I find myself wishing I could. Wishing this could be the life someone like Elena deserves.

I weigh the consequences of admitting the truth. Of breaking myself open for a man I’m already aware can’t ever love me, and how it might feel to bleed out for once and not have him blot up the mess. But I always did like the pain.

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.

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.

Auden’s Funeral Blues

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

People who wear black all the time are not normal,’ my sister would say. ‘Either they worship Satan or hate themselves. There are too many colors available on this green earth to sit and choose one that lacks any at all.

And though I left the way Death usually does—silently, before dawn—it was never my intention not to return and collect.

The phone vibrates again, an unsaved number I know by heart popping up, making the organ clench inside my chest like a closed fist, barring itself from further hurt.

A blurred film with no sound, only the sensation of being trapped. A feeling I’ve spent my whole life trying to escape, only to continually find myself wrapped in its arms.

I do my best to commit it all to memory, in case this has been a fluke, and I wake up tomorrow with him ignoring me all over again. The dread swirling around in my stomach promises it is. Nothing good can last.

You don’t really leave this world. Either you’re in it until the day you die, or you live on the edge of insanity, aware that hits don’t expire. Waiting for them to come for you.

His shoulders slump just the slightest fraction, and his Adam’s apple jumps, and I quickly drop my stare to the table, feeling tears burning behind my lids at his silence. It’s a sign. An admission. Just not the one I’d been hoping for.

I can almost feel him growing more and more desperate, and desperate people will do whatever they have to in order to survive.

Already, I’m far too concerned with the way she looks at me, and there’s a niggling thought catching in the back of my mind that maybe this will be what turns her off from me. Maybe she’ll finally see I’m the monster everyone always warned her about.

I do my best not to look down, sure that whatever I find there will humanize him. That I won’t be able to resist the brokenness, and my attraction will let loose and morph into something real. Something that can hurt me.

I was betrayed,” he says softly, his right hand coming up, twisting in my hair. “And I vowed not to ever let anyone close enough to me to hurt me like that again.

They’re spoon-fed lies, and because they’re typically too stupid to think for themselves, no one ever questions why their soup tastes like poison.

And an overdose isn’t satisfying. Not in the same way as cutting into someone’s chest cavity, breaking and peeling back their ribcage, and severing their beating heart while the life bleeds from their eyes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Dis, almost in a moment, saw her, prized her, took her: so swift as this, is love.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.