β
why is it
that when the story ends
we begin to feel all of it
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
a lot of times
we are angry at other people
for not doing what
we should have done for ourselves
- responsibility
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
despite knowing
they wonβt be here for long
they still choose to live
their brightest lives
- sunflowers
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
You do not just wake up and become the butterfly"
-Growth is a process.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
and here you are living
despite it all
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
you left
and i wanted you still
yet i deserved someone
who was willing to stay
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i stand
on the sacrifices
of a million women before me
thinking
what can i do
to make this mountain taller
so the women after me
can see farther
- legacy
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Sheβs the sun. Iβm the dark.
If sheβs gone, I can kiss that fucking light away.
Without her, I know Iβll never see it again.
β
β
Krista Ritchie (Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters #2))
β
it isn't what we left behind
that breaks me
it's whatever we could've built
had we stayed
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of
ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.
β
β
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
β
Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.
β
β
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
β
If I'm not the love of your life
I'll be the greatest loss instead
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
what is the greatest lesson a woman should learn
that since day one
she's already had everything she needs within herself
it's the world that convinced her she did not
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
we have been dying
since we got here
and forgot to enjoy the view
- live fully
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
you're everywhere
except right here
and it hurts
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Octavia was the only person in the world who truly knew him. There was no one else he really cared about ever seeing again. But then he glanced over Clarke, who was leaning over to breathe in the scent of a bright pink flower, the sun catching the gold strands in her hair, and suddenly he wasn't so sure.
β
β
Kass Morgan (The 100 (The 100, #1))
β
the right one does not
stand in your way
they make space for you
to step forward
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
when death
takes my hand
i will hold you with the other
and promise to find you
in every lifetime
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
never feel guilty for starting again
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
you ask
if we can still be friends
i explain how a honeybee
does not dream kissing
the mouth of a flower
and then settle for its leaves
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i could be anything in the world but i wanted to be his
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i am
made of water
of course i am emotional
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
this morning
I told the flowers
what I'd do for you
and they blossomed
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
I will no longer
compare my path to others
-I refuse to do a disservice to my life
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i have survived far too much to go quietly
let a meteor take me
call the thunder for backup
my death will be grand
the land will crack
the sun will eat itself
- the day I leave
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
if I am the longest relationship
of my life
isn't it time to
nurture intimacy
and love
with the person
I lie in bed with each night
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
it isn't blood that makes you my sister
it's how you understand my heart
as though you carry it
in your body
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
this place makes me the kind of exhausted that has nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with the people around me - introvert
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
trust your body it reacts to right and wrong better than your mind does
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
what is it with you and sunflowers he asks
i point to the field of yellow outside
sunflowers worship the sun i tell him
only when it arrives do they rise
when the sun leaves
they bow their heads in mourning
that is what the sun does to those flowers
it's what you do to me
- the sun and her flowers
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
the irony of loneliness
is we all feel it
at the same time
- together
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
what is stronger
than the human heart
which shatters over and over
and still lives
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
on the last day of love my heart cracked inside my body
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i spent the entire night casting spells to bring you back
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
I hear a thousand kind words about me
and it makes no difference
yet i hear one insult
and all confidence shatters
- focusing on the negative
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
borders
are man-made
they only divide us physically
donβt let them make us
turn on each other
- we are not enemies
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
To hate
Is an easy lazy thing
But to love
Takes strength
Everyone has
But not all are
Willing to practice
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
βPleasure is wild and sweet. She likes purple flowers. She loves the sun and the wind and the night sky. She carries a silver bowl full of liquid moonlight. She has a cat named Midnight with stars on his paws. Many people mistrust Pleasure, and even more misunderstand her. For a long time I could barely stand to be in ...the same room with her...
β
β
J. Ruth Gendler (The Book of Qualities)
β
She wished she could visit Mariam's grave, to sit with her awhile, leave a flower or two. But she sees now that it doesn't matter. Mariam is never very far.... Mariam is in her own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.
β
β
Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
β
my god
is not as unreachable as
they'd like you to think
my god is beating inside us infinitely
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Together we are an endless conversation
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i hardened under the last loss. it took something human out of me. i used to be so deeply emotional iβd crumble on demand. but now the water has made its exit. of course i care about the ones around me. iβm just struggling to show it. a wall is getting in the way. i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now. i am. so strong. that nothing shakes me. and all i dream is to soften.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
even though we were both under the same roof of that coffee shop. i was still solar systems away from you.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
i am sorry this world
could not keep you safe
may your journey home
be a soft and peaceful one
- rest in peace
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
yes
it is possible
to hate and love someone
at the same time
i do it to myself
every day
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.
β
β
AndrΓ© Gide
β
to heal
you have to
get to the root
of the wound
and kiss it all the way up
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
even if this is a mistake. it could only be right to be this wrong with you.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
i do not weep
becasuse I'm unhappy
i weep because I have everything
yet I'm unhappy
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
what if
there isn't enough time
to give her what she deserves
do you think
if i begged the sky hard enough
my mother's soul would
return to me as my daughter
so i can give her
the comfort she gave me
my whole life
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
you are waiting for someone
Who is not coming back
meaning
you are living your life
hoping that someone will realize
they can't live theirs without you
Realizations don't work like that
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
The universe took its time on you
Crafted you to offer the world
Something different from everyone else
When you doubt
How you were created
You doubt an energy greater than us both
--irreplaceable
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i learned love is about giving. everything. and letting it hurt. i learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
wish pure love and soft peace
upon the ones
who've been unkind to you
and keep moving forward
- this will free you both
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
my twenties are the warm-up for what iβm really about to do wait till you see me in my thirties now that will be a proper introduction to the nasty. wild. woman in me.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
β
learning to not envy
someone else's blessings
is what grace looks like
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
they leave
and act like it never happend
they come back
and act like they never left
- ghost
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
you are a mirror
if you continue to starve yourself of love
you'll only meet people who'll starve you too
if you soak yourself in love
the universe will hand you those
who'll love you too
- a simple math
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
the hummingbirds tell me
you've changed your hair
i tell them i don't care
while listening to them
describe every detail
hunger - rupi kaur
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
I long
for you
but you long
for someone else
I deny the one
who wants me
cause I want someone else
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Like the rainbow
after the rain
joy will reveal itself
after sorrow
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
representation
is vital
otherwise the butterfly
surrounded by a group of moths
unable to see itself
will keep trying to become the moth
- representation
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
love does not look like a person
love is our actions
love is giving all we can
even if it's just the bigger slice of cake
love is understanding
we have the power to hurt one another
but we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we don't
love is fighting out all the kind sweetness we deserve
and when someone shows up
saying they will provide it as you do
but their actions seem to break you
rather than build you
love is knowing whom to choose
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
When he pressed his lips to hers, she was not surprised. It happened the way the sun rose, the way a flower blossomed, the way fain fell from the sky, the way the dead stopped breathing. Naturally. Inevitably.
β
β
Lauren Kate (Teardrop (Teardrop, #1))
β
you call me to tell me you miss me
i turn to face the front door of the house
waiting for a knock
days later you call to say you need me
but still aren't here
the dandelions on the lawn
are rolling their eyes in disappointment
the grass has declared you yesterday's news
what do i care
if you love me
or miss me
or need me
when you aren't doing anything about it
if i'm not the love of your life
i'll be the greatest loss instead
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Sometimes
I stop myself from
saying the words out loud
as if leaving my mouth too often
might wear them down
- I love you
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
the way you speak of yourself
the way you degrade yourself
into smallness
is abuse
-self-harm
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
I liked it when my mother tried to teach me things, when she paid attention. So often when I was with her, she was unreachable. Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.
β
β
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
β
A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon's meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds.
β
β
Walter de la Mare (Peacock Pie)
β
the day you have everything
i hope you remember
when you had nothing
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
when I hit the rock bottom
that exist after the rock bottom
and no rope or band appeared
i wondered
what if nothing wants me
because I do not want me
- i am both the poison and the antidote
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i even tried to bury myself alive
but the dirt recoiled
you have already rotted it said
there is nothing left for me to do
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
my god
is not waiting inside a church
or sitting above the temple's steps
my god
is the refugee's breath as she's running
is living in the starving child's belly
is the heartbeat of the protest
my god
does not rest between pages
written by holy men
my god
lives between the sweaty thighs
of women's bodies sold for money
was last seen washing the homeless man's feet
my god
is not as unreachable as
they'd like you to think
my god is beating inside us infinitely
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
what love looks like
what does love look like the therapist asks
one week after the breakup
and iβm not sure how to answer her question
except for the fact that i thought love
looked so much like you
thatβs when it hit me
and i realized how naive i had been
to place an idea so beautiful on the image of a person
as if anybody on this entire earth
could encompass all love represented
as if this emotion seven billion people tremble for
would look like a five foot eleven
medium-sized brown-skinned guy
who likes eating frozen pizza for breakfast
what does love look like the therapist asks again
this time interrupting my thoughts midsentence
and at this point iβm about to get up
and walk right out the door
except i paid too much money for this hour
so instead i take a piercing look at her
the way you look at someone
when youβre about to hand it to them
lips pursed tightly preparing to launch into conversation
eyes digging deeply into theirs
searching for all the weak spots
they have hidden somewhere
hair being tucked behind the ears
as if you have to physically prepare for a conversation
on the philosophies or rather disappointments
of what love looks like
well i tell her
i donβt think love is him anymore
if love was him
he would be here wouldnβt he
if he was the one for me
wouldnβt he be the one sitting across from me
if love was him it would have been simple
i donβt think love is him anymore i repeat
i think love never was
i think i just wanted something
was ready to give myself to something
i believed was bigger than myself
and when i saw someone
who probably fit the part
i made it very much my intention
to make him my counterpart
and i lost myself to him
he took and he took
wrapped me in the word special
until i was so convinced he had eyes only to see me
hands only to feel me
a body only to be with me
oh how he emptied me
how does that make you feel
interrupts the therapist
well i said
it kind of makes me feel like shit
maybe weβre looking at it wrong
we think itβs something to search for out there
something meant to crash into us
on our way out of an elevator
or slip into our chair at a cafe somewhere
appear at the end of an aisle at the bookstore
looking the right amount of sexy and intellectual
but i think love starts here
everything else is just desire and projection
of all our wants needs and fantasies
but those externalities could never work out
if we didnβt turn inward and learn
how to love ourselves in order to love other people
love does not look like a person
love is our actions
love is giving all we can
even if itβs just the bigger slice of cake
love is understanding
we have the power to hurt one another
but we are going to do everything in our power
to make sure we donβt
love is figuring out all the kind sweetness we deserve
and when someone shows up
saying they will provide it as you do
but their actions seem to break you
rather than build you
love is knowing who to choose
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Now suzanne takes you hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From salvation army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For shes touched your perfect body with her mind.
β
β
Leonard Cohen (Songs of Leonard Cohen, Herewith: Music, Words and Photographs)
β
when it came to listening
my mother taught me silence
if you are drowning their voice with yours
how will you hear them she asked
when it came to speaking
she said do it with commitment
every word you say
is your own responsibility
when it came to being
she said be tender and tough at once
you need to be vulnerable to live fully
but rough enough to survive it all
when it came to choosing
she asked me to be thankful
for the choices i had that
she never had the privilege of making
- lessons from mumma
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
i am of the earth
and to the earth I shall return once more
life and death are old friends
and I am the conversation between them
i am their late-night chatter
their laughter and tears
what is there to be afraid of
if I am the gift they give to each other
this place never belonged to me anyway
i have always been theirs
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Once upon a time, there was Candy and Dan. Things were very hot that year. All the wax was melting in the trees. He would climb balconies, climb everywhere, do anything for her, oh Danny boy. Thousands of birds, the tiniest birds, adorned her hair. Everything was gold. One night the bed caught fire. He was handsome and a very good criminal. We lived on sunlight and chocolate bars. It was the afternoon of extravagant delight. Danny the daredevil. Candy went missing. The days last rays of sunshine cruise like sharks. I want to try it your way this time. You came into my life really fast and I liked it. We squelched in the mud of our joy. I was wet-thighed with surrender. Then there was a gap in things and the whole earth tilted. This is the business. This, is what we're after. With you inside me comes the hatch of death. And perhaps I'll simply never sleep again. The monster in the pool. We are a proper family now with cats and chickens and runner beans. Everywhere I looked. And sometimes I hate you. Friday -- I didn't mean that, mother of the blueness. Angel of the storm. Remember me in my opaqueness. You pointed at the sky, that one called Sirius or dog star, but on here on earth. Fly away sun. Ha ha fucking ha you are so funny Dan. A vase of flowers by the bed. My bare blue knees at dawn. These ruffled sheets and you are gone and I am going to. I broke your head on the back of the bed but the baby he died in the morning. I gave him a name. His name was Thomas. Poor little god. His heart pounds like a voodoo drum.
β
β
Luke Davies (Candy)
β
The eye turned to the fire gave back no light and he closed it with his thumb and sat by her and put his hand upon her bloodied forehead and closed his own eyes that he could see her running in the mountains, running in the starlight where the grass was wet and the sun's coming as yet had not undone the rich matrix of creatures passed in the night before her. Deer and hare and dove and groundvole all richly empaneled on the air for her delight, all nations of the possible world ordained by God of which she was one among and not separate from. Where she ran the cries of the coyotes clapped shut as if a door had closed upon them and all was fear and marvel. He took up her stiff head out of the leaves and held it or he reached to hold what cannot be held, what already ran among the mountains at once terrible and of great beauty, like flowers that feed on flesh. What blood and bone are made of but can themselves not make on any altar nor by any wound of war. What we may well believe has power to cut and shape and hollow out the dark form of the world surely if wind can, if rain can. But which cannot be held never be held and is no flower but is swift and a huntress and the wind itself is in terror of it and the world cannot lose it.
β
β
Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing (The Border Trilogy, #2))
β
I KNEW IT WAS OVER
when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring
when you used to make the sun rise
when trees used to throw themselves
in front of you
to be paper for love letters
that was how i knew i had to do it
swaddle the kids we never had
against january's cold slice
bundle them in winter
clothes they never needed
so i could drop them off at my mom's
even though she lives on the other side of the country
and at this late west coast hour is
assuredly east coast sleeping
peacefully
her house was lit like a candle
the way homes should be
warm and golden
and home
and the kids ran in
and jumped at the bichon frise
named lucky
that she never had
they hugged the dog
it wriggled
and the kids were happy
yours and mine
the ones we never had
and my mom was
grand maternal, which is to say, with style
that only comes when you've seen
enough to know grace
like when to pretend it's christmas or
a birthday so
she lit her voice with tiny
lights and pretended
she didn't see me crying
as i drove away
to the hotel connected to the bar
where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had
just because it shares your first name
because they don't make a whisky
called baby
and i only thought what i got
was what
i ordered
i toasted the hangover
inevitable as sun
that used to rise
in your name
i toasted the carnivals
we never went to
and the things you never won
for me
the ferris wheels we never
kissed on and all the dreams
between us
that sat there
like balloons on a carney's board
waiting to explode with passion
but slowly deflated
hung slave
under the pin-
prick of a tack
hung
heads down
like lovers
when it doesn't
work, like me
at last call
after too many cheap
too many sweet
too much
whisky makes me
sick, like the smell of cheap,
like the smell of
the dead
like the cheap, dead flowers
you never sent
that i never threw
out of the window
of a car
i never
really
owned
β
β
Daphne Gottlieb (Final Girl)
β
it has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. i learned everything is temporary. moments. feelings. people. flowers. i learned love is about giving. everything. and letting it hurt. i learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe. it has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. making friends out of strangers. making strangers out of friends. learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. and for the pains it canβt there will always be my motherβs arms. we must learn to focus on warm energy. always. soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. for if we canβt learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
She's locked up with a spinning wheel
She can't recall what it was like to feel
She says, "This room's gonna be my grave
And there's no one who can save me,"
She sits down to her colored thread
She knows lovers waking up in their beds
She says, "How long can I live this way
Is there someone I can pay to let me go
'Cause I'm half sick of shadows
I want to see the sky
Everyone else can watch as the sun goes down
So why can't I
And it's raining
And the stars are falling from the sky
And the wind
And the wind I know it's cold
I've been waiting
For the day I will surely die
And it's here
And it's here for I've been told
That I'll die before I'm old
And the wind I know it's cold...
She looks up to the mirrored glass
She sees a horse and rider pass
She says, "This man's gonna be my death
'Cause he's all I ever wanted in my life
And I know he doesn't know my name
And that all the girls are all the same to him
But still I've got to get out of this place
'Cause I don't think I can face another night
Where I'm half sick of shadows
And I can't see the sky
Everyone else can watch as the tide comes in
So why can't I
But there's willow trees
And little breezes, waves, and walls, and flowers
And there's moonlight every single night
As I'm locked in these towers
So I'll meet my death
But with my last breath I'll sing to him I love
And he'll see my face in another place,"
And with that the glass above
Her cracked into a million bits
And she cried out, "So the story fits
But then I could have guessed it all along
'Cause now some drama queen is gonna write a song for me,"
She went down to her little boat
And she broke the chains and began to float away
And as the blood froze in her veins she said,
"Well then that explains a thing or two
'Cause I know I'm the cursed one
I know I'm meant to die
Everyone else can watch as their dreams untie
So why can't I
β
β
Emilie Autumn
β
There came a time near dawn on the eve of spring, and Luthien danced upon a green hill; and suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Luthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where he feet had passed. Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinuviel; and the woods echoed the name.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)
β
I sought a soul that might resemble mine, and I could not find it. I scanned all the crannies of the earth: my perseverance was useless. Yet I could not remain alone. There had to be someone who would approve of my character; there had to be someone with the same ideas as myself. It was morning. The sun in all his magnificence rose on the horizon, and behold, there also appeared before my eyes a young man whose presence made flowers grow as he passed. He approached me and held out his hand: βI have come to you, you who seek me. Let us give thanks for this happy day.β But I replied: βGo! I did not summon you. I do not need your friendshipβ¦ .β It was evening. Night was beginning to spread the blackness of her veil over nature. A beautiful woman whom I could scarcely discern also exerted her bewitching sway upon me and looked at me with compassion. She did not, however, dare speak to me. I said: βCome closer that I may discern your features clearly, for at this distance the starlight is not strong enough to illumine them.β Then, with modest demeanour, eyes lowered, she crossed the greensward and reached my side. I said as soon as I saw her: βI perceive that goodness and justice have dwelt in your heart: we could not live together. Now you are admiring my good looks which have bowled over more than one woman. But sooner or later you would regret having consecrated your love to me, for you do not know my soul. Not that I shall be unfaithful to you: she who devotes herself to me with so much abandon and trust β with the same trust and abandon do I devote myself to her. But get this into your head and never forget it: wolves and lambs look not on one another with gentle eyes.β What then did I need, I who rejected with disgust what was most beautiful in humanity!
β
β
Comte de LautrΓ©amont (Maldoror and the Complete Works)
β
I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun. I have heard them called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself, only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not be afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face.
β
β
Elizabeth von Arnim (Elizabeth and Her German Garden)
β
All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet. The sun poured in on her. The sea lay asleep in it, hardly stirring. Across the bay the lovely mountains, exquisitely different in color, were asleep too in the light; and underneath her window, at the bottom of the flower-starred grass slope from which the wall of castle rose up, was a great cypress, cutting through the delicate blues and violets and rose-colors of the mountains and the sea like a great black sword.
She stared. Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty; and she alive to feel it. Her face was bathed in light.
β
β
Elizabeth von Arnim (The Enchanted April)
β
She's never asked for a drawing before. I'm horrible at giving them away. 'For the sun, stars, oceans, and all the trees, I'll consider it,' I say, knowing she'll never agree. She knows how badly I want the sun and trees. We've been dividing up the world since we were five. I'm kicking butt at the moment - universe domination is within my grasp for the first time.
'Are you kidding?' she says, standing up straight. It annoys me how tall she's getting. It's like she's being stretched at night. 'That leaves me just the flowers, Noah.'
Fine, I think. She'll never do it. It's settled, but it isn't. She reaches over and props up the pad, gazing at the portrait like she's expecting the English guy to speak to her.
'Okay,' she says. 'Trees, stars, oceans. Fine.'
'And the sun, Jude.'
'Oh, all right," she says, totally surprising me. 'I'll give you the sun.
β
β
Jandy Nelson (I'll Give You the Sun)
β
With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet.
β
β
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
β
This is the one thing I hope: that she never stopped. I hope when her body couldnβt run any farther she left it behind like everything else that tried to hold her down, she floored the pedal and she went like wildfire, streamed down night freeways with both hands off the wheel and her head back screaming to the sky like a lynx, white lines and green lights whipping away into the dark, her tires inches off the ground and freedom crashing up her spine. I hope every second she could have had came flooding through that cottage like speed wind: ribbons and sea spray, a wedding ring and Chadβs mother crying, sun-wrinkles and gallops through wild red brush, a babyβs first tooth and its shoulder blades like tiny wings in Amsterdam Toronto Dubai; hawthorn flowers spinning through summer air, Danielβs hair turning gray under high ceilings and candle flames and the sweet cadences of Abbyβs singing. Time works so hard for us, Daniel told me once. I hope those last few minutes worked like hell for her. I hope in that half hour she lived all her million lives.
β
β
Tana French (The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2))
β
Nancy waded out to her own rocks and searched her own pools and let that couple look after themselves. She crouched low down and touched the smooth rubber-like sea anemones, who were stuck like lumps of jelly to the side of the rock. Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream down.
Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed, gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan (she was still enlarging the pool), and slipped into the vast fissures of the mountain side. And then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest on that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunks which the smoke of steamers made waver on the horizon, she became with all that power sweeping savagely in and inevitably withdrawing, hypnotised, and the two senses of that vastness and this tininess (the pool had diminished again) flowering within it made her feel that she was bound hand and foot and unable to move by the intensity of feelings which reduced her own body, her own life, and the lives of all the people in the world, for ever, to nothingness. So listening to the waves, crouching over the pool, she brooded.
β
β
Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse)
β
The year is done. I spread the past three hundred sixty-five days before me on the living room carpet. Here is the month I decided to shed everything not deeply committed to my dreams. The day I refused to be a victim to the self-pity. Here is the week I slept in the garden. The spring I wrung the self-doubt by its neck. Hung your kindness up. Took down the calendar. The week I danced so hard my heart learned to float above water again. The summer I unscrewed all the mirrors from their walls. No longer needed to see myself to feel seen. Combed the weight out of my hair. I fold the good days up and place them in my back pocket for safekeeping. Draw the match. Cremate the unnecessary. The light of the fire warms my toes. I pour myself a glass of warm water to cleanse myself for january. Here I go. Stronger and wiser into the new.
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily. I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day. And what can life in town offer in the way of pleasure to equal the delight of any one of the calm evenings I have had this month sitting alone at the foot of the verandah steps, with the perfume of young larches all about, and the May moon hanging low over the beeches, and the beautiful silence made only more profound in its peace by the croaking of distant frogs and hooting of owls?
β
β
Elizabeth von Arnim (Elizabeth and Her German Garden)
β
The Ballad of Lucy Jordan
The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.
At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.
Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school,
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day.
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way.
At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.
The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.
At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair
β
β
Marianne Faithfull
β
there is a list of questions
i want to ask but never will
there is a list of questions
i go through in my head
every time i'm alone
and my mind can't stop itself from searching for you
there is a list of questions i want to ask
so if you're listening somewhere
here i am asking them
what do you think happens
to the love that's left behind
when two lovers leave
how blue do you think it gets
before it passes away
does it pass away
or does it still exist somewhere
waiting for us to come back
when we lied to ourselves by
calling this unconditional and left
which one of us hurt more
i shattered into a million little pieces
and those pieces shattered into a million more
crumbled into dust till
there was nothing left of me but the silence
tell me how love
how did the grieving feel for you
how did the mourning hurt
how did you peel your eyes open after every blink
knowing i'd never be there staring back
it must be hard to live with what ifs
there must always be this constant dull aching
in the pit of your stomach
trust me
i feel it too
how in the world did we get here
how did we live through it
and how are we still living
how many months did it take
before you stopped thinking of me
or are you still thinking of me
cause if you are
then maybe i am too
thinking of you
thinking of me
with me
in me
around me
everywhere
you and me and us
do you still touch yourself to the thoughts of me
do you still imagine my naked naked tiny tiny body
pressed into yours
do you still imagine the curve of my spine and
how you wanted to rip it out of me
cause the way it dipped into my
perfectly rounded bottom
drove you crazy
baby
sugar baby
sweet baby
ever since we left
how many times did you pretend
it was my hand stroking you
how many times did you search for me in your fantasies
and end up crying instead of coming
don't you lie to me
i can tell when you're lying
cause there's always that little bit of
arrogance in your response
are you angry with me
are you okay
and would you tell me if you're not
and if we ever see each other again
do you think you'd reach out and hold me
like you said you would
the last time we spoke and
you talked of the next time we would
or do you think we'd just look
shake in our skin as we pine to
absorb as much as we can of each other
cause by this time we've probably got
someone else waiting at home
we were good together weren't we
and is it wrong that i'm asking you these questions
tell me love
that you have been
looking for these answers too
β
β
Rupi Kaur (the sun and her flowers)
β
Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she canβt speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space β none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still a couple of minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that cases I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature β lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.
β
β
Mark Twain (The Diaries of Adam and Eve)
β
Stay."
The strangled word, spoken in anguish, tore at her heart, ripped through her resolve. She swiped at the tears raining over her cheeks and slowly turned, forcing the painful truth past her lips. "I can't stay. I can no longer give you what you want. I can't give you a son."
Dallas stepped off the veranda and extended a bouquet of wildflowers toward her. "Then stay and give me what I need."
Her heart lurched at the abundance of flowers wilting within his smothering grasp. She shook her head vigorously. "You don't need me. There are a dozen eligible women in Leighton who would happily give you a son and within the month there will be at least a dozen moreβ"
"I'll never love any of them as much as I love you. I know that as surely as I know the sun will come up in the morning."
Her breath caught, her trembling increased, words lodged in her throat. He loved her? She watched as he swallowed.
"I know I'm not an easy man. I don't expect you to ever love me, but if you'll tolerate me, I give you my word that I'll do whatever it takes to make you happyβ"
Quickly stepping forward, she pressed her shaking fingers against his warm lips. "My God, don't you know that I love you? Why do you think I'm leaving? I'm leaving because I do love youβso much. Dallas, I want you to have your dream, I want you to have your son."
Closing his eyes, he laid his roughened hand over hers where it quivered against his lips and pressed a kiss against the heart of her palm.
"I can't promise that I won't have days when I'll look toward the horizon and feel the aching emptiness that comes from knowing we'll never have a child to pass our legacy on toβ¦"Opening his eyes, he captured her gaze. "But I know the emptiness you'll leave behind will eat away at me every minute of every day."
-Dallas and Dee
β
β
Lorraine Heath (Texas Glory (Texas Trilogy, #2))
β
Every Day You Play....
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water,
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands.
You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.
The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind.Β Β The wind.
I alone can contend against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
You are here.Β Β Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Curl round me as though you were frightened.
Even so, a strange shadow once ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
Until I even believe that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)
β
When a person dies, they cross over from the realm of freedom to the realm of slavery. Life is freedom, and dying is a gradual denial of freedom. Consciousness first weakens and then disappears. The life-processes β respiration, the metabolism, the circulation β continue for some time, but an irrevocable move has been made towards slavery; consciousness, the flame of freedom, has died out.
The stars have disappeared from the night sky; the Milky Way has vanished; the sun has gone out; Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been extinguished; millions of leaves have died; the wind and the oceans have faded away; flowers have lost their colour and fragrance; bread has vanished; water has vanished; even the air itself, the sometimes cool, sometimes sultry air, has vanished. The universe inside a person has ceased to exist. This universe is astonishingly similar to the universe that exists outside people. It is astonishingly similar to the universes still reflected within the skulls of millions of living people. But still more astonishing is the fact that this universe had something in it that distinguished the sound of its ocean, the smell of its flowers, the rustle of its leaves, the hues of its granite and the sadness of its autumn fields both from those of every other universe that exists and ever has existed within people, and from those of the universe that exists eternally outside people. What constitutes the freedom, the soul of an individual life, is its uniqueness. The reflection of the universe in someone's consciousness is the foundation of his or her power, but life only becomes happiness, is only endowed with freedom and meaning when someone exists as a whole world that has never been repeated in all eternity. Only then can they experience the joy of freedom and kindness, finding in others what they have already found in themselves.
β
β
Vasily Grossman (Life and Fate)
β
Season late, day late, sun just down, and the sky
Cold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she,
From water the color of sky except where
Her motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver,
Rises. Stands on the raw grass. Against
The new-curdling night of spruces, nakedness
Glimmers and, at bosom and flank, drips
With fluent silver. The man,
Some ten strokes out, but now hanging
Motionless in the gunmetal water, feet
Cold with the coldness of depth, all
History dissolving from him, is
Nothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees
The body that is marked by his use, and Time's,
Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air,
Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. Sees
How, with that posture of female awkwardness that is,
And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down in
The pure curve of their weight and buttocks
Moon up and, in swelling unity,
Are silver and glimmer. Then
The body is erect, she is herself, whatever
Self she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand,
Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, but
With face lifted toward the high sky, where
The over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no star
Yet throbs there. The towel, forgotten,
Does not move now. The gaze
Remains fixed on the sky. The body,
Profiled against the darkness of spruces, seems
To draw to itself, and condense in its whiteness, what light
In the sky yet lingers or, from
The metallic and abstract severity of water, lifts. The body,
With the towel now trailing loose from one hand, is
A white stalk from which the face flowers gravely toward the high sky.
This moment is non-sequential and absolute, and admits
Of no definition, for it
Subsumes all other, and sequential, moments, by which
Definition might be possible. The woman,
Face yet raised, wraps,
With a motion as though standing in sleep,
The towel about her body, under her breasts, and,
Holding it there hieratic as lost Egypt and erect,
Moves up the path that, stair-steep, winds
Into the clamber and tangle of growth. Beyond
The lattice of dusk-dripping leaves, whiteness
Dimly glimmers, goes. Glimmers and is gone, and the man,
Suspended in his darkling medium, stares
Upward where, though not visible, he knows
She moves, and in his heart he cries out that, if only
He had such strength, he would put his hand forth
And maintain it over her to guard, in all
Her out-goings and in-comings, from whatever
Inclemency of sky or slur of the world's weather
Might ever be. In his heart he cries out. Above
Height of the spruce-night and heave of the far mountain, he sees
The first star pulse into being. It gleams there.
I do not know what promise it makes him.
β
β
Robert Penn Warren
β
ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near
lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are
flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life
and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I
saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get
round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he
asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the
sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey
and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the
sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they
called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with
the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish
girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in
the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who
else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all
clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep
and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and
the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of
years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like
kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with
the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her
lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the
castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman
going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and
the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and
the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets
and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the
jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was
a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the
Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me
under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then
I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I
yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and
his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
β
β
James Joyce (Ulysses)