“
yesterday — i was the moon
today — just an eclipse
something in me travels; some days it’s to the dark
some days it’s to the light
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
in pieces
yet at peace
i am a building
in a post war city
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
i want stars, strength, and balance in my soul
it's been a while since they were last together in me
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
I watched the moon alone, unable to share his cold beauty with anyone.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Yesterday)
“
the kind people
are running this world
they don't know how
their one little smile
has saved many lives
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
like the anger of fire
shapes metal
like the sorrow of a writer
creates poetry
everything that is beautiful
doesn't always start beautifully
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was The Moon (Lead Title))
“
i share a legacy
with the sky
we both know how to carry
some unanswered prayers
and some unshed tears
{the sky & i}
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
nothing teaches better than this trio
the fears, the tears, the years
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
isn't it
breathtakingly beautiful
how you've learned
to grow flowers
from the memories
that died
a long time ago
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
i carry
the stories
the sadness
the victories
of people before me
i'm both a monument
and a future skyscraper
rising from the same skeleton
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
you’re the moon
and the world is
a lonely wolf; it cries
at the sight of you
for you are glorious
and so out of reach
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
A scene of Mahabharata where the Surya Devta(Sun God)would come to bless Kunti with a baby
The child watching this on TV says "I have been taught that Neil Armstrong had taken several days to reach the moon.Surya Devta took only half a minute to land up in the Kunti's room; that too, he didn't even need a rocket-he had simply walked. Science and Sanskrit had always appeared contradicting subjects to me at school:-)
”
”
Ravinder Singh (Like It Happened Yesterday)
“
Everything that is beautiful doesn't always start beautifully.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
you remind me of my favorite metropolis
sparkling, loud yet hauntingly sad when
the light goes out
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Dreams live as long as the dreamers do.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
My youngest brother killed a lynx yesterday,” Rose said.
“Apparently it came into his territory and left some spray marks. He skinned it, smeared himself in its blood, and put its pelt on his shoulders like a cape. And that’s how he came dressed for breakfast.”
Cerise drank some beer. “My sister kills small animals and hangs their
corpses on a tree, because she thinks she is a monster and she’s convinced
we’ll eventually banish her from the house. They’re her rations. Just in case.”
Rose blinked. “I see. I think we’re going to get along just fine, don’t you?”
“I think so, yes.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Bayou Moon (The Edge, #2))
“
I am fighting my losses, my trauma, and everything bringing ache because I don't want to look in the mirror and see a tragedy staring back.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
people leave
because
unlike matter
that has firm, solid, strong
molecules
people are made up of
air, fire, earth and water
that change shapes
that keep moving
that cannot stop
and let them be
the things they want
the shapes they like
because
in the end
you too will grow
into something
entirely new
so let them go
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
And now I want to get yesterday down while I still have the awful taste of it
”
”
Penelope Lively (Moon Tiger)
“
do not worry
about people
they're wearing the same flesh
breathing the same chemicals
walking on the same solid earth as you
so why should it matter
when you are them and they are you
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
You existence
reminded me
of sunsets and ocean waves
yet
you still wonder
what it took
for me to fall
for someone like
you
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
the most beautiful thing in this world isn’t made up of particles. it’s the strength of a person who has seen the collapse of their world, everything they held dear crashing down in a million pieces. yet every morning, they wake up and build their life, all over again. mourning their loss in a tranquil silence. i haven’t yet seen anything more astonishingly beautiful.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
i have had my ups and downs
but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday sceptres and crowns
fried oysters and velvet gowns
and today i herd with bums
but wotthehell wotthehell
i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
wotthehell wotthehell
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell
”
”
Don Marquis (The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel (Penguin Classics))
“
The universe is a brilliant writer,
it wrote your name
in my stars
before any of us existed
so when the time comes
they’ll light up your path
and lead you straight to me.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Be kind for this is something a lot of people can never be.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Charlotte: Giordano is terribly afraid Gwyneth will get everything wrong tomorrow that she can get wrong.
Gideon: Pass the olive oil, please.
Charlotte: Politics and history are a closed book to Gwyneth. She can’t even remember names—they go in at one ear and straight out of the other. She can’t help it, her brain doesn’t have the capacity. It’s stuffed with the names of boy bands and long, long cast lists of actors in soppy romantic films.
Raphael: Gwyneth is your time-traveling cousin, right? I saw her yesterday in school. Isn’t she the one with long dark hair and blue eyes?
Charlotte: Yes, and that birthmark on her temple, the one that looks like a little banana.
Gideon: Like a little crescent moon.
Raphael: What’s that friend of hers called? The blonde with freckles? Lily?
Charlotte: Lesley Hay. Rather brighter than Gwyneth, but she’s a wonderful example of the way people get to look like their dogs. Hers is a shaggy golden retriever crossbreed called Bertie.
Raphael: That’s cute!
Charlotte: You like dogs?
Raphael: Especially golden retriever crossbreeds with freckles.
Charlotte: I see. Well, you can try your luck. You won’t find it particularly difficult. Lesley gets through even more boys than Gwyneth.
Gideon: Really? How many . . . er, boyfriends has Gwyneth had?
Charlotte: Oh, my God! This is kind of embarrassing. I don’t want to speak ill of her, it’s just that she’s not very discriminating. Particularly when she’s had a drink. She’s done the rounds of almost all the boys in our class and the class above us . . . I guess I lost track at some point. I’d rather not repeat what they call her.
Raphael: The school mattress?
Gideon: Pass the salt, please.
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Saphirblau (Edelstein-Trilogie, #2))
“
He says nothing but I know he is listening. Words are the only medicine I have.
‘You make sense of a world that is senseless. You gave me space boots so that I could walk on other planets. Without you, I’m lost. There’s no left, no right. No tomorrow, only miles of yesterdays. It doesn’t matter what happens now because I’ve found you. That’s why I’m here. Because of you. You who I love. My best friend. My brother.
”
”
Sally Gardner (Maggot Moon)
“
I want to travel to be away from home
so that I can return, loving it as much as
it deserves to be loved.
I want to go away from home
just for returning back here
to realize everything I have ever neglected
is worth loving and
worrying for.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Been a long road to follow
Been there and one tomorrow
Without saying goodbye to yesterday
Are the memories I hold
Still valid?
Or have the tears deluded them..
Something somewhere out there
Is calling...
Zero Gravity,
What's it like?
Is somebody there
Beyond these heavy aching feet?
Am I going home?
Will I hear someone?
Singin solace to the silent moon
Still the road keeps on telling me
To go on...
Something is pulling me,
I feel the gravity
Of it all.
”
”
Maaya Sakamoto
“
Nothing teaches better
than this trio
the fears, the tears, the years.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Words; they are powerlessly powerful
so use yours
well.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
the price of leaving
is everything
you do not return to a place
but to a memory; soundless
a home becomes another house
a face becomes another name
a city becomes another geographical location
when you leave
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
You'll have to learn
the art of
losing, choosing, and refusing
to win what we call
the game of life.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Romeo laughed harder. "Lady doctors?"
"Wyatt calls 'em that." Jules giggled. "Poor fella, stuck with me for a twin. He's been hearing 'bout hormones and period problems since he was fourteen. He's got to have some defense mechanism against all of it."
"I think he has hormone problems," Romeo said with a frown. "He was definitely menstruating yesterday.
”
”
Kele Moon (Star Crossed (Battered Hearts, #2))
“
i can fix a lot of things
but cannot mend a broken heart
for it is too fragile
and fixing it
is another art
but i hope to learn it soon
as i see mine getting torn
before it breaks into a million pieces
and i am left to fix it
all alone
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Years have passed, I suppose. I'm not really counting them anymore. But I think of this thing often: Perhaps there is a Golden Age someplace, a Renaissance for me sometime, a special time somewhere, somewhere but a ticket, a visa, a diary-page away. I don't know where or when. Who does? Where are all the rains of yesterday?
In the invisible city?
Inside me?
It is cold and quiet outside and the horizon is infinity. There is no sense of movement.
There is no moon, and the stars are very bright, like broken diamonds, all.
”
”
Roger Zelazny
“
wear your past with grace
present with care
and future with delight
nothing gleams better
when three of them
are carefully combined
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
someday
something
will go
terribly, utterly, horribly
wrong
one day
everything
will be fine
our lives
swing between
that one day
and someday
so why do you worry
about it
everyday
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
The fading blue of yesterdays sky is reminding of the hopeless love I told the moon about you.
”
”
Laura Chouette
“
sometimes my words
become a pile of broken glass
they do not come out
without hurting; dripping blood
and i forget how to speak
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Everything that is beautiful
doesn't always start beautifully.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
What if we started naming heartbreaks after
people like they do with storms on
news channels
how would this heart look with name tags?
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
the idea of destruction
keeps running through my veins like blood
yet my bones hold the will to create
everyday blood and bones in me clash
to create something; to destroy something
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
when you fall
do it gloriously
collapse like a glass building
sink like a gigantic ship
and when you’re done
sinking and collapsing and
sinking and collapsing
build yourself
with your wreckage
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
i am too afraid
of people who have souls like hometowns
warm, forgiving and too kind
that even if you leave; even when you leave
will always welcome you home
remember you with your family name
i am too afraid
of something too homely
when every breath coming out of my body
is shaped like leaving
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
You massage the universe's spine the way you twirl through time and leave shadows on the sun.
My love is the wind song.
If it is up to me, I'll never die.
If it is up to me, I'll die tomorrow a thousand times in an hour and live seven minutes later. If it is up to me, the sun wll never cease to shine and the moon will never cease to glow and I'll dance a million tomorrows in the sun rays of the moon waves and bath in the yesterdays of the days to come, ignoring all of my afterthoughts and preconceived notions.
If it is up to me, it is up to me.
And thus is my love.
Untainted.
Eternal.
The wind is the moon's imagination.
Wandering.
It seeps through cracks, ripples the grass, explores the unknown.
My love is my soul's imagination.
How do I love you?
Imagine.
”
”
Saul Williams
“
Anita Johnston, Ph.D., author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, taught me to look in the mirror with curiosity rather than fear. So I may look at my reflection and think, ‘That’s interesting. I wonder why my body seems bigger today than it did yesterday. Maybe it’s water weight. Maybe it’s my outfit. Or maybe my eyes are just playing tricks on me.’ I know it’s not possible for me to gain a noticeable amount of weight overnight, so I will go no further than that. I move on with my day without skipping a beat—and definitely without missing a meal.
”
”
Jenni Schaefer (Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life)
“
the sunset looked way too pigmented—as if
the color palette of sorrow had been thrown on
it. yes, if sorrow had colors, they would be lilac
mixed with pinks and some sneaky whites like
the clouds at twilight. i thought it was a
masterpiece; a way for nature to share that at the
end of the day, each sobbed whisper goes
directly to the skies. but before that, it leaves
its color on the canvas of earth one last time.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
you said you would stay forever
but does this forever include all the times when
i am an earthquake; tearing apart my
own existence—burying down my own cities
because
i do not want the sound of the word forever in
the same air where I keep the sound of the
word survival if it was never meant to
be there at all
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
After a few minutes of running aimlessly through empty halls, I find myself outdoors by the pool. It’s still and quiet and the water is sparkling under the moon. There is no one here so I collapse into a heap on a lounge.
And I cry.
I cry in heaves and sobs and wrack my ribs and finally my freaking head hurts again from all the sobbing. And I don’t even feel pathetic for crying so much because anyone in their right mind would cry in my situation.
I’m in a foreign country, all alone, in love with the Prime Minister’s son and he’s too afraid to break out of his cage and love me back. Oh, and I practically got stomped to death by a gigantic horse yesterday. I deserve some slack.
Finally, I’m all cried out.
”
”
Courtney Cole (Dante's Girl (The Paradise Diaries, #1))
“
i am growing flowers
in the darkest part of my heart
for if light ever enters
it would know where to start
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
isn’t it absolutely
terrifyingly, shockingly
amazing
how words
those tiny little sounds
in this chemical-filled air
those shapeless weird marks
on stark white paper
can make or break
living breathing people
stab them at heart
without a single weapon
push them off
their strong firm feet
take away the earth
they used to stand on
words; they’re powerlessly powerful
so use yours
well
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
We found out yesterday that Robert has won the Drama Desk Award for Possessed, a huge Broadway honor. Jeff—who is over the moon about it—is planning a fiftieth birthday party/award celebration. Of course I have to be there . . . and of course Calvin will be, too.
No way am I going solo. I need major reinforcements, and nobody makes me laugh harder than Davis.
“I know where this is going,” he says once I’ve explained the situation. He lets out a long sigh. “Does this mean I need to get a plane ticket and rent a tux?”
“Well yeah, because I want my date to look hot.”
“That is some Flowers in the Attic stuff, Holls. Don’t be weird.
”
”
Christina Lauren (Roomies)
“
freedom is really expensive and no one will wrap
it in a fancy paper to leave at your doorstep. you
will have to buy it with the currency of blood,
sweat and struggle. it doesn’t twinkle like sparkly
things. it is often shaped like bruised knees
and mourning skin. but what makes it too precious is
the fact that a lot of currencies will never be
strong enough to bid for it. this is where
it becomes insanely priceless.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
So Colton…I saw how you looked at Ryanne yesterday. This is same girl you told me about last time, right? She’s pretty cute,” I recognize the voice as Tom’s. “Yes, it’s the same girl, but nothing is going on. We’re friends.” He stops talking and I hear him sigh. “I admit that I used to have feelings for her before I knew her. But now those feelings are gone. Purely platonic. She’s not really my type anyway.” So now that he knows me, he doesn’t have feeling for me anymore? That’s what every girl wants to hear.
”
”
Kaitlyn Hoyt (BlackMoon Beginnings (Prophesized #1))
“
At the time I felt as if every night I, too, were gazing out of a porthole at the moon made of ice. A transparent, eight-inch-thick, frozen moon. But no one was beside me. I watched the moon alone, unable to share its cold beauty with anyone.
Yesterday
Is two days before tomorrow,
The day after two days ago.
I hope that in Denver (or some other faraway town) Kitaru is happy. If it's too much to ask that he's happy, I hope at least that today he has his health, and all his needs met. For no one knows what kind of dreams tomorrow will bring.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Men Without Women)
“
You came up this gut-wrenching road yesterday by yourself?" Cassie exclaimed. "You deserve a good cuffing just for driving this goat path on your own."
"It's not so bad once you get used to dodging the ruts."
"You've got some nerve calling these canyons ruts."
"Cassandra Hudson, where is your sense of adventure?"
"I dropped it off going over that last rut-crossing when only two wheels were on the ground."
"Those ones are a bit exhilarating, aren't they?" Alexandra shot Cassie a quick look and wink.
"Keep your eyes on the road!"
"What road?"
"Exactly!
”
”
H.H. Laura (Larkspur (Sensate Nine Moon Saga, #1))
“
But love unexplained is clearer. When pen hasted to write, On reaching the subject of love it split in twain. When the discourse touched on the matter of love, Pen was broken and paper torn. In explaining it Reason sticks fast, as an ass in mire; Naught but Love itself can explain love and lovers! None but the sun can display the sun, If you would see it displayed, turn not away from it. Shadows, indeed, may indicate the sun's presence, But only the sun displays the light of life. Shadows induce slumber, like evening talks, But when the sun arises the "moon is split asunder." 3 In the world there is naught so wondrous as the sun, But the Sun of the soul sets not and has no yesterday. Though the material sun is unique and single, We can conceive similar suns like to it. But the Sun of the soul, beyond this firmament, No like thereof is seen in concrete or abstract.4
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Masnavi I Manavi of Rumi Complete 6 Books)
“
Yes, Spring has come!
I felt it yesterday when I looked out the window at the moon over the rooftops, when I breathed in the fresh night air.
This morning I was awoken by the sun, drenched the room with bright warm light.
I opened my eyes, reached out to meet the sun and murmured "Good morning"!
”
”
Alena Shubina Lis
“
What did I want? I wanted a Roc's egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist, and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur - I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles. I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and Lost Dauphin. I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and to eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be the way they had promised me it was going to be, instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is. I had had one chance - for ten minutes yesterday afternoon. Helen of Troy, whatever your true name may be - and I had known it and I had let it slip away. Maybe one chance is all you ever get.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein (Glory Road)
“
Book Excerpt:
"What about your family, Abu Huwa? Are you an orphan?” the little girl very innocently asked the Sphinx.
“My father and your father are one and the same. However, I do have a brother who has stood as my mirror throughout time on the opposite horizon. It is I who faces east, but it is he who faces west. I am the recorder of yesterday and he holds the records of tomorrow. I am the positive, and he is my negative. I carry the right eye of the sun and he carries the left eye of the moon. He keeps his eye on the underworld and I keep an eye on the world over. Together we have joined the sky and earth, and split fire and water.”
Seham stood on all toes to peek over the Sphinx's shoulder for a sign of his brother. “Where is he?” she asked, her eyes still searching the open horizon.
“He has yet to be uncovered, but as I stand above the sands of time, he still sleeps below. Before the descent of Adam, we have both stood as loyal Protectors of the Two Halls of Truth.”
The girl asked in astonishment, “I've never heard of these halls, Abu Huwa. Where are they?”
“At the end of each of our tails is a passage that will reveal to you the secrets of Time. One hall reflects a thousand truths, and the other hall reflects all that is untrue. One will speak to your heart, and the other will speak to your mind. This is why you need to use both your heart and mind to understand which one is real, and which is a distorted illusion created to misguide those that have neglected their conscience. Both passageways connect you to the Great Hall of Records.”
“What is the Hall of Records?”
“The Great Pyramid, my child. It is as multidimensional in its shape as it is in its purpose. Every layer and every brick marks the coming of a prophet, the ascension of evil, or another cycle of man. It contains the entire history and future of mankind. And, as is above, so is below. Above ground, it serves as the most powerful energy source to harmonize and power the world! The shape of the pyramid above ground is also the same image mirrored beneath it. Underground, it serves as a powerful well and drain. This is really why Egypt is called the Land of Two Lands. There exists a huge world of its own underneath the plateau, a world within worlds. Large amounts of gold, copper and mercury were once housed here, including the secrets of Time, the 100th name of He Who Is All, and a gift from Truth that still awaits to be discovered. It sleeps with Time in the Great Pyramid, hidden away in a lower shaft that leads to the stars.”
Dialogue from 'The Little Girl and the Sphinx' by Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (Dar-El Shams, 2010)
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
That’s the moon,’ I said.
‘Gran likes it like that,’ said Lettie Hempstock.
‘But it was a crescent moon yesterday. And now it’s full. And it was raining. It is raining. But now it’s not.’
‘Gran likes the full moon to shine on this side of the house. She says it’s restful, and it reminds her of when she was a girl,’ said Lettie. ‘And you don’t trip on the stairs.
”
”
Neil Gaiman
“
Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.
There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.
There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.
There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.
At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
Moonlight spilled onto the stairs, brighter than our candle flames. I glanced up through the window and I saw the full moon. The cloudless sky was splashed with stars beyond all counting. “That’s the moon,” I said. “Gran likes it like that,” said Lettie Hempstock. “But it was a crescent moon yesterday. And now it’s full. And it was raining. It is raining. But now it’s not.” “Gran always likes the full moon to shine on this side of the house. She says it’s restful, and it reminds her of when she was a girl,” said Lettie.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane)
“
some houses are haunted. but they aren’t
always inhabited by ghosts. sometimes some
memories dwell there so starkly, their nameless
faceless sorrow starts taking over and the walls
keeping that house together start to collapse. i
have walked into such houses only to witness a
melancholic past, a withering present and a
silent future. those houses carry the dead
dreams and maybe broken hearts too
because god knows where else one
could ever find this much sadness
that would turn one firm building
into an abandoned mess.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
O Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.… —Psalm 104:24 (NAS) In her intriguing book What’s Your God Language? Dr. Myra Perrine explains how, in our relationship with Jesus, we know Him through our various “spiritual temperaments,” such as intellectual, activist, caregiver, traditionalist, and contemplative. I am drawn to naturalist, described as “loving God through experiencing Him outdoors.” Yesterday, on my bicycle, I passed a tom turkey and his hen in a sprouting cornfield. Suddenly, he fanned his feathers in a beautiful courting display. I thought how Jesus had given me His own show of love in surprising me with that wondrous sight. I walked by this same field one wintry day before dawn and heard an unexpected huff. I had startled a deer. It was glorious to hear that small, secret sound, almost as if we held a shared pleasure in the untouched morning. Visiting my daughter once when she lived well north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, I can still see the dark silhouettes of the caribou and hear the midnight crunch of their hooves in the snow. I’d watched brilliant green northern lights flash across the sky and was reminded of the emerald rainbow around Christ’s heavenly throne (Revelation 4:3). On another Alaskan visit, a full moon setting appeared to slide into the volcanic slope of Mount Iliamna, crowning the snow-covered peak with a halo of pink in the emerging light. I erupted in praise to the triune God for the grandeur of creation. Traipsing down a dirt road in Minnesota, a bloom of tiny goldfinches lifted off yellow flowers growing there, looking like the petals had taken flight. I stopped, mesmerized, filled with the joy of Jesus. Jesus, today on Earth Day, I rejoice in the language of You. —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Pss 24:1, 145:5; Hb 2:14
”
”
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2014)
“
You need to get home, both of you. Louis, I’d like to keep the letters here, if you don’t mind. I want to go over them again.”
I came to my feet. “And ask the stars about them?”
Jesse nodded. Armand only shook his head, gloomy. There were bruises under his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday.
“Ask the-fine. Splendid. Keep them if you like. Burn them. Turn them to gold or silver or lead. In the morning I’ll wake up and none of this will have happened.”
“No, lordling,” I said to him. “You’re never going to wake like that again, and you’re never going to be able to forget.”
“Bugger you, waif.”
“And you.”
He walked past both of us without another glance or another word, opened the door, and disappeared into the night.
I went to Jesse and wrapped my arms around him. After only a second’s hesitation, his arms lifted to embrace me, too.
“I don’t want to go,” I whispered.
I felt his chest expand beneath my cheek. “This is going to be much more difficult than I anticipated.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.” He brought a hand to my hair, his fingers weaving through. “Things are about to change rapidly now, Lora. He’ll come back to us stronger and stronger. He’s going to crave you more and more, and not having you will eat him raw.”
I frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”
Jesse tucked a strand behind my ear, his eyes emerald dark, his lashes tipped with candlelight. “It will be in his nature. He’ll feel compelled to claim you, and he won’t stop trying to do that. Ever. When that happens-“
“That is not bloody going to happen.”
“When that happens,” he said again resolutely, “I want you to remember two things. One: I’ve loved you since before he even knew you lived. Two: Spare a little pity for him. This isn’t entirely his fault. He was born into his role, just as you and I were. But, Lora-of-the-moon-only a little pity, all right?”
“My pity may reach as deep and wide as the ocean,” I answered. “But my heart is already claimed.”
To prove it, I clutched his shirt and lifted myself to my toes and brought my lips to his.
Sweeter than raspberry jam, warmer than candle flame, softer than bread.
People often spoke with religious rapture of milk and honey, but if I had nothing but Jesse to consume for the rest of my days, I’d die a heathen beast, content.
”
”
Shana Abe (The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1))
“
O my dark Rosaleen,
Do not sigh, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
They march along the deep.
There’s wine from the royal Pope,
Upon the ocean green;
And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Over hills, and thro’ dales,
Have I roam’d for your sake;
All yesterday I sail’d with sails
On river and on lake.
The Erne, at its highest flood,
I dash’d across unseen,
For there was lightning in my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
O, there was lightning in my blood,
Red lighten’d thro’ my blood.
My Dark Rosaleen!
All day long, in unrest,
To and fro, do I move.
The very soul within my breast
Is wasted for you, love!
The heart in my bosom faints
To think of you, my Queen,
My life of life, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
My life, my love, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Woe and pain, pain and woe,
Are my lot, night and noon,
To see your bright face clouded so,
Like to the mournful moon.
But yet will I rear your throne
Again in golden sheen;
‘Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
‘Tis you shall have the golden throne,
‘Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly, for your weal:
Your holy delicate white hands
Shall girdle me with steel.
At home, in your emerald bowers,
From morning’s dawn till e’en,
You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
You’ll think of me through daylight hours
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
I could scale the blue air,
I could plough the high hills,
Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,
To heal your many ills!
And one beamy smile from you
Would float like light between
My toils and me, my own, my true,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
My Dark Rosaleen!
O, the Erne shall run red,
With redundance of blood,
The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
And flames wrap hill and wood,
And gun-peal and slogan-cry
Wake many a glen serene,
Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,
Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
”
”
James Clarence Mangan
“
You didn’t inoculate yourself yesterday,” I say to Peter.
“No, I didn’t,” Peter says.
“Why not?”
“Why should I tell you?”
I run my thumb over the vial and say, “You came with me because you know I have the memory serum, right? If you want me to give it to you, it couldn’t hurt to give me a reason.”
He looks at my pocket again, like he did earlier. He must have seen Christina give it to me. He says, “I’d rather just take it from you.”
“Please.” I lift my eyes up, to watch the snow spilling over the edges of the buildings. It’s dark, but the moon provides just enough light to see by. “You might think you’re pretty good at fighting, but you aren’t good enough to beat me, I promise you.”
Without warning he shoves me, hard, and I slip on the snowy ground and fall. My gun clatters to the ground, half buried in the snow. That’ll teach me to get cocky, I think, and I scramble to my feet.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
“
Listen to Me in the truth of your soul. Listen to Me in the feelings of your heart. Listen to Me in the quiet of your mind.
Hear Me, everywhere. Whenever you have a question, simply know that I have answered it already. Then open your eyes to your world. My response could be in an article already published. In the sermon already written and about to be delivered. In the movie now being made. In the song just yesterday composed. In the words about to be said by a loved one. In the heart of a new friend about to be made.
My Truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain. It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon.
My Truth—and your surest help in time of need—is as awesome as the night sky, and as simply, incontrovertibly, trustful as a baby’s gurgle.
It is as loud as a pounding heartbeat—and as quiet as a breath taken in unity with Me.
I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My…Self.
Call on Me, therefore, wherever and whenever you are separate from the peace that I am.
I will be there. With Truth. And Light. And Love.
”
”
Neale Donald Walsch
“
In Praise of Darkness"
Old age (the name that others give it)
can be the time of our greatest bliss.
The animal has died or almost died.
The man and his spirit remain.
I live among vague, luminous shapes
that are not darkness yet.
Buenos Aires,
whose edges disintegrated
into the endless plain, has gone back to being the Recoleta, the Retiro,
the nondescript streets of the Once,
and the rickety old houses
we still call the South.
In my life there were always too many things.
Democritus of Abdera plucked out his eyes in order to think:
Time has been my Democritus.
This penumbra is slow and does not pain me;
it flows down a gentle slope,
resembling eternity.
My friends have no faces,
women are what they were so many years ago,
these corners could be other corners,
there are no letters on the pages of books.
All this should frighten me,
but it is a sweetness, a return.
Of the generations of texts on earth
I will have read only a few–
the ones that I keep reading in my memory,
reading and transforming.
From South, East, West, and North
the paths converge that have led me
to my secret center.
Those paths were echoes and footsteps,
women, men, death-throes, resurrections,
days and nights,
dreams and half-wakeful dreams,
every inmost moment of yesterday
and all the yesterdays of the world,
the Dane's staunch sword and the Persian's moon,
the acts of the dead,
shared love, and words,
Emerson and snow, so many things.
Now I can forget them. I reach my center,
my algebra and my key,
my mirror.
Soon I will know who I am.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges (In Praise of Darkness)
“
Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: “When did the wind die down?”
“An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it.”
“You’ve been awake a whole hour?”
“My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Idiot.” She lifts her body to tell me to slide out.
I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. “I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.” She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. “Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it.”
I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. “You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance?”
In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. “What?”
“Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any.”
I trace her cheekbones. “Semiattractive? Cheeky moo.”
She yawns an octave. “Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow.”
“I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you.”
“Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party.”
I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. “No.”
Her hand explores my shoulder blade. “No what?”
“No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it.”
Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. “Second?”
“Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up”—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—“with me all day.”
She presses her ear to my ribs. “Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant?”
The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. “If time had a pause button,” I tell Holly Sykes, “I’d press it. Right”—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—“there. Now.”
“But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever.”
I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere.
She murmurs, “You only value something if you know it’ll end.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Sometimes the sun is covered by dense layers of dark clouds. A person looking up would swear that there is no sun. But still the sun shines. At night, when there is no light, still the sun shines. During rain or hail or hurricane or tornado, still the sun shines.
Does the sun ask itself, "Am I good? Am I worthwhile? Is there enough of me?" No, it burns and it shines. Does the sun ask itself, "What does the moon think of me? How does Mars feel about me today?" No, it burns, it shines. Does the sun ask itself, "Am I as big as other suns in other galaxies?" No, it burns, it shines.
In this country in the coming years, I think that there will be a terrible storm. I think that the skies will darken beyond all recognition. Those who walk the streets will walk them in darkness. Those who are in prisons and mental institutions will not see the sky at all, only the dark out of barred windows. Those who are hungry and in despair may not look up at all. They will see the darkness as it lies on the ground in front of their feet. Those who are raped will see the darkness as they look up into the face of the rapist. Those who are assaulted and brutalized by madmen will stare intently into the darkness to discern who is moving toward them at every moment. It will be hard to remember, as the storm is raging, that still, even though we cannot see it, the sun shines. It will be hard to remember that still, even though we cannot see it, the sun burns. We will try to see it and we will try to feel it, and we will forget that it warms us still, that if it were not there, burning, shining, this earth would be a cold and desolate and barren place.
As long as we have life and breath, no matter how dark the earth around us, that sun still burns, still shines. There is no today without it. There is no tomorrow without it. There was no yesterday without it. That light is within us—constant, warm, and healing. Remember it, sisters, in the dark times to come.
”
”
Andrea Dworkin (Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics)
“
In all the seconds of life that beat solemnly from my heart, in all the hours of waiting for the release that binds us, in all the months of moons that guided our hopes, of all the years of yesterday that taught us the path of which we walk today:
Today, I am true. Today I will write without release; without questions or care of the minds that do not understand the words that will lie before me in this letter.
Licentia. The release of anything that covers my ears or blinds my eyes. Oh, licentia.
The people shall call me insane because I have proven to remain unrelenting in the belief that freedom and justice and truth are all subject to change, but that the ideas are the spark which light the fire to continue my journey. These words have no value unless given an idea, and that is the only part that is bounded in this world: the idea.
The idea to be free; no matter the cost of autonomy and decisions and conscious state of mind.
The idea to have justice; without a governance to proclaim what it defines.
The idea to seek truth; no matter how many lies claim to hold the reality.
Licentia. The release of anything that covers my ears or blinds my eyes. Oh, licentia.
It is the fear that controls the grip which lacerates our brains and chains our souls. It is the fear that without power or an entity that seeks it, that we will be dangerous. It is the fear of our ourselves that binds us. But once we are no longer afraid of the mirror that grants us our reflection, we begin to understand that the fear was simply an illusion.
It is the pain that scares us into submission and breaks our vows to our hearts. It is the pain that makes an honest man beg on his knees to the wolves that seek to devour his ideas. It is the pain that creates the stage to which only fools applaud and puppets play. It is the pain that makes us see the ugliness of our soul. But once we are in pain, we realize that it was never the worst feeling to behold, but that the betrayal of our minds and the minds of others is.
Licentia. The release of anything that covers my ears or blinds my eyes. Oh, licentia.
”
”
Kylee Carrier
“
ACT I Dear Diary, I have been carrying you around for a while now, but I didn’t write anything before now. You see, I didn’t like killing that cow to get its leather, but I had to. Because I wanted to make a diary and write into it, of course. Why did I want to write into a diary? Well, it’s a long story. A lot has happened over the last year and I have wanted to write it all down for a while, but yesterday was too crazy not to document! I’m going to tell you everything. So where should we begin? Let’s begin from the beginning. I kind of really want to begin from the middle, though. It’s when things got very interesting. But never mind that, I’ll come to it in a bit. First of all, my name is Herobrine. That’s a weird name, some people say. I’m kinda fond of it, but that’s just me I suppose. Nobody really talks to me anyway. People just refer to me as “Him”. Who gave me the name Herobrine? I gave it to myself, of course! Back in the day, I used to be called Jack, but it was such a run-of-the-mill name, so I changed it. Oh hey, while we’re at the topic of names, how about I give you a name, Diary? Yeah, I’m gonna give you a name. I’ll call you… umm, how does Doris sound? Nah, very plain. I must come up with a more creative name. Angela sounds cool, but I don’t think you’ll like that. Come on, give me some time. I’m not used to coming up with awesome names on the fly! Yes, I got it! I’ll call you Moony, because I created you under a full moon. Of course, that’s such a perfect name! I am truly a genius. I wish people would start appreciating my intellect. Oh, right. The story, right, my bad. So Moony, when it all started, I was a miner. Yep, just like 70% of the people in Scotland. And it was a dull job, I have to say. Most of the times, I mined for coal and iron ore. Those two resources were in great need at my place, that’s why so many people were miners. We had some farmers, builders, and merchants, but that was basically it. No jewelers, no booksellers, no restaurants, nothing. My gosh, that place was boring! I had always been fascinated by the idea of building. It seemed like so much fun, creating new things from other things. What’s not to like? I wanted to build, too. So I started. It was part-time at first, and I only did it when nobody was around. Whenever I got some free time on my hands, I spent it building stuff. I would dig out small caves and build little horse stables and make boats and all. It was so much fun! So I decided to take it to the next level and left my job as a miner. They weren’t paying me well, anyway. I traveled far and wide, looking for places to build and finding new materials. I’m quite the adrenaline junkie, I soon realized, always looking for an adventure.
”
”
Funny Comics (Herobrine's Diary 1: It Ain't Easy Being Mean (Herobrine Books))
“
You make sense of a world that is senseless. You gave me space boots so that I could walk on other planets. Without you, I’m lost. There’s no left, no right. No tomorrow, only miles of yesterdays. It doesn’t matter what happens now because I’ve found you. That’s why I’m here. Because of you. You who I love. My best friend. My brother.” Hector
”
”
Sally Gardner (Maggot Moon)
“
What is this?" Emily asked, looking in the largest Styrofoam container. There was a bunch of dry-looking chopped meat inside.
"Barbecue."
"This isn't barbecue," Emily said. "Barbecue is hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill."
Vance laughed, which automatically made Emily smile. "Ha! Blasphemy! In North Carolina, barbecue means pork, child. Hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill- that's called, 'cooking out' around here," he explained with sudden enthusiasm. "And there are two types of North Carolina barbecue sauce-Lexington and Eastern North Carolina. Here, look." He excitedly found a container of sauce and showed her, accidentally spilling some on the table. "Lexington-style is the sweet sugar-and-tomato-based sauce, some people call it the red sauce, that you put on chopped or pulled pork shoulder. Julia's restaurant is Lexington-style. But there are plenty of Eastern North Carolina-style restaurants here. They use a thin, tart, vinegar-and-pepper based sauce. And, generally, they use the whole hog. But no matter the style, there's always hush puppies and coleslaw. And, if I'm not mistaken, those are slices of Milky Way cake. Julia makes the best Milky Way cakes."
"Like the candy bar?"
"Yep. The candy bars are melted and poured into the batter. It means 'Welcome.'"
Emily looked over to the cake Julia had brought yesterday morning, still on the counter. "I thought an apple stack cake meant 'Welcome.'"
"Any kind of cake means 'Welcome,'" he said. "Well, except for coconut cake and fried chicken when there's a death."
Emily looked at him strangely.
"And occasionally a broccoli casserole," he added.
”
”
Sarah Addison Allen (The Girl Who Chased the Moon)
“
Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, there’s Injuns in the yard!”
Loretta catapulted upward and landed on all fours in the middle of the bed. Peeking out over the windowsill, she looked at the yard and saw--just that: the yard. Not an Indian in sight. Amy reared back, her eyes the size of cow pies. Loretta skewered her with a murderous glare.
“Well, it might’ve worked.”
Relief made Loretta giddy. She flopped down on the mattress and hugged her pillow. Her heart felt as though it might pound its way up her throat. Hunter. When Amy had said Indians were outside, Loretta had pictured him as he had looked yesterday, high atop his horse with a hundred warriors behind him, his broad chest and corded arms rippling in the sunlight. She had never seen such fierce, burning eyes.
“I--Loretta, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you that bad a turn, honest. I was just funnin’ you.”
Loretta clenched her teeth and burrowed her face deeper into the pillow. She wanted to throttle Amy for her foolishness.
“Loretta, please, don’t be mad. I never thought you’d believe me. Where’s your sense of humor? You don’t really think that ol’ Injun will come back? What would an Injun want with a skinny runt like you? They like fat, brown girls who smear bear grease all over themselves. You’re probably downright ugly to his way of thinkin’, the drabbest-lookin’ female he ever saw. No gee-gaws. Stinky, too, with that lavender smell on you. And no creepy-crawlies in your hair.”
Loretta kept her face buried, determined not to laugh.
“And sayin’ he liked you? There ain’t no such thing as a polite Comanche. He wouldn’t buy you! He’d just steal you. He came to look at you, that’s all. Maybe he thought he had a hankerin’ for ya and decided different once he got here.”
Turning her head, Loretta cracked an eye, smothering a grin.
“Come to think of it, you do look sort of pitiful,” Amy teased. “That’s probably why he rode off. He took one look and got such a fright, he still ain’t stopped runnin’.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
...Console my soul, clumsy air,
spill into my eyes the deepest dream,
a dense dream and distant like death.
I recall the fingers of your hand,
your bony fingers.
My eyes choke for the moons of your lips.
Your memory has me nailed to the lukewarm afternoon
and I resemble the shadow of a body buried yesterday,
a shadow that looks to the north, to the south,
that seeks, without finding, the path...
”
”
Víctor Terán
“
The birds fly away to the southern sky searching a home
Well does life get any better
More yesterday than today
How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow
But it rained . . .
”
”
Parikrama-Music Band
“
After Hunter lowered her onto her fur pallet, which she was swiftly coming to regard as her prison, she clutched the buffalo robe around her and rolled onto her side. Make no grief behind you. She felt like an animal caught in a snare--awaiting the trapper and certain death.
The sun burned through her closed eyelids, red and hot. Loretta heard Hunter walk a short distance away, heard him murmur something. His stallion nickered in response. She lifted her lashes and watched the Comanche go through the contents of a parfleche. He withdrew her ruffled drawers, the buckskin shirt he had worn to the farm yesterday morning, and a drawstring pouch. As he walked back to her, he pressed her bloomers to his nose and sniffed.
He met her gaze as he drew the lavender-scented cloth away from his face. For the first time, he smiled a genuine smile. It warmed his expression so briefly that she might have believed she imagined it but for the twinkle that remained in his dark eyes as he knelt beside her.
He dropped the clothing onto the fur and held up the pouch. “Bear fat for the burn. You will lie on your face.”
Their gazes locked, laughter still shimmering in his. Seconds dragged by, measured by the wild thumping of her heart. He wanted to rub her down? Oh, God, what was she going to do? She clutched the fur more tightly.
Hunter shrugged as if her defiance bothered him not at all and tossed down the pouch. “You are sure enough not smart, Blue Eyes. You will lie on your face,” he said softly. “Don’t fight the big fight. If my strong arm fails me, I will call my friends. And in the end, you will lie on your face.”
Loretta imagined sixty warriors swooping down on her. As if he needed more of an advantage. Hatred and helpless rage made her tremble. Hunter watched her, his expression unreadable as he waited. She wanted to fly at him, scratching and biting. Instead she loosened her hold on the buffalo robe and rolled onto her stomach.
As she pressed her face into the stench-ridden buffalo fur, tears streamed down her cheeks, pooling and tickling in the crevices at each side of her nose. She clamped her arms to her sides and lay rigid, expecting him to jerk back the robe. Shame swept over her in hot, rolling waves as she imagined all those horrible men looking at her.
She felt the fur shift and braced herself. His greased palm touched her back and slid downward with such agonizing slowness that her skin shriveled and her buttocks quivered. So focused was she on his touch, on the shame of it, that several seconds passed before she realized he had slipped his arm beneath the fur, that no one, not even he, could see her.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Foehnish You. Stillness
flew ahead of us, a second,
clear life.
I won, I lost, we believed
in somber wonders, the branch,
quickly written into the sky, carried us, grew
through the drifting white into the moon-orbit, a
morning leaped up into yesterday, we retrieved
the candlestick, scattered, I crashed
everything into no-one’s hand.
”
”
Paul Celan (Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry: A Bilingual Edition)
“
you wanted to know about the art i created and the melancholy behind the words but i couldn’t tell you how and why those shades and words found their way on that crisp white graceful paper because sometimes some things do not have a story and artists spill their tears and blood and sweat on a canvas just so we could keep art alive even when we don’t have a story telling you why because if art were to be explained you would know how empty everything is; from creations to the hearts that created.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
walked, and wherever I looked the madness of history answered me. In the old GUM building, once host to the world’s most unwearable clothes, burly women of the new Russian rich sampled dresses by Hermès and scents by Estée Lauder, while their chauffeur-driven limousines waited in line outside, bodyguards and chase cars in attendance. Yet glance up and down the street, and there were the skeletons of yesterday dangling from their grimy gibbets: iron quarter-moons with the rusting stars of Soviet triumphalism trailing from their tails, hammers and sickles carved into crumbling façades, fragmented Partyspeak scrawled in drunken tracery against the rain-swept sky. And everywhere, as evening gathered, the beacons of the true conquerors flashing out their gospel: “Buy us, eat us, drink us, wear us, drive us, smoke us, die of us! We are what you get instead of slavery!
”
”
John Le Carré (Our Game)
“
The boys and Lark disappeared into the trees. “My youngest brother killed a lynx yesterday,” Rose said. “Apparently it came into his territory and left some spray marks. He skinned it, smeared himself in its blood, and put its pelt on his shoulders like a cape. And that’s how he came dressed for breakfast.” Cerise drank some beer. “My sister kills small animals and hangs their corpses on a tree, because she thinks she is a monster and she’s convinced we’ll eventually banish her from the house. They’re her rations. Just in case.” Rose blinked. “I see. I think we’re going to get along just fine, don’t you?” “I think so, yes.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Bayou Moon (The Edge, #2))
“
Think about what pleases you, not just them." She paused, then added softly. "Even the Pumpkin King has a right to be happy."
Jack nodded slowly, for a moment seeming lost in thought. Then he gave her a shy smile. "You know," he said thoughtfully. "We should talk more often, you and I."
Sally's breath caught in her throat as Jack met her eyes with his own. She'd never seen them so close up, she realized wildly. Or noticed how dark and deep they were. She felt a shiver down her back, not entirely unpleasant.
"I'd like that," she replied, her voice barely over a whisper. "I'd like that a lot."
They fell into silence. Not an awkward silence, like the kind that came when she was having dinner with Dr. Finkelstein and ran out of polite things to say, but rather something almost comforting. As if they were somehow sharing a precious moment beyond words, side by side, under the bright orange Halloween moon.
It was funny, Sally thought. If someone had told her yesterday she'd be out here on Halloween night, staring into the eyes of the Pumpkin King, she'd never have believed it. Up until now, they'd seemed worlds apart.
But she'd seen another side of Jack tonight. And for two people who were so very different, they were more alike than she could have ever imagined.
”
”
Mari Mancusi (Sally's Lament)
“
When I say you're mine.
A butterfly flies so soft,
Wings silent but tender,
The Roses dance gentle in the wind,
Flows love into the fields,
My face hits the sweet air in a feeling I cannot describe,
Only touch with my heart,
Only feel in my spirit,
Only hear in a silent smile.
When I say you're mine,
Longing in a world,
Tenderness gone away as dried dust in the winds,
Feet walked on sands of despair,
Sore from love gone,
Legs tired from walking on ever ending roads,
Roads to longing for a hand,
Longing for a touch,
Longing vote a voice in this cold world,
To say, 'I love you'.
When I say you're mine.
Once the passing of many moons,
So long ago, so far ago,
Making the world not a home,
Making the so life so barren,
Dry, loveless, careless,
The moon no longer had her beauty of sliver,
No longer had magic in the shine,
Now dull, now dark, now lonely,
When I say you're mine,
Sun and earth together,
One needs the other,
The sun needs earth,
The earth needs the sun,
Life, love..balance out,
Love grows, love flows,
Perfect, perfect as you,
Orbit, love, life,
From heaven, from destiny,
For eternity.
When I call you mine.
You, are my world,
You, are my moon,
You, are my sun,
You, are my earth,
Back, perfect, love..is back..
When I say you're mine,
It is because my dear,
I am all yours.....
”
”
Ravinder Singh (Like It Happened Yesterday)
“
It’s funny,” Clarissa said. “Most of human history, going to the moon was impossible. A dream beyond anyone’s imagination. And then, for a while, it was an adventure. And then it was trivial. Yesterday, it was trivial. And now, it’s almost impossible again.” “Yeah,” Amos said, “well…” He felt her shift, tuning her head as if to see him better. “What?” He gestured up toward the sky. “Pretty sure that’s the sun. I get what you’re saying though.
”
”
James S.A. Corey (Nemesis Games (Expanse #5))
“
You’ve made yourself quite at home, I see.”
“You’ve a nice one here, Kerry,” he said quite sincerely, his smile still sparkling with equal sincerity. “Good people, nice little town. I find I’m liking it a great deal. Your ocean is everything you described and more. I’d like to see more of it, through your eyes. When you have the time.”
She debated the wisdom of trying to put him off as long as possible, but hell, he’d talked to half the town already and even had Fergus playing wingman for him. “Apparently I have time today,” she said dryly. “I don’t know how long this meeting will go, and I have errands to run. I still have to buy tonight’s special--unless you’re about to tell me that’s already been handled, too.”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he replied easily. “But then, I just got into town late yesterday, so I’m not fully up to speed yet.”
Oh, he was speedy all right. “It scares me to think what you’ll know after a full twenty-four hours. If you want to go with me to Blue’s to look at the early morning catch, I can meet you down in Half Moon around two.”
He grinned. “We have a date, then.”
“We have a meeting. Blue’s is--”
“I’ll find it.”
“I’m sure you will.” She went to climb in the cab of her truck, then paused. “I don’t guess it will do me any good to ask you to stop talking to people about me, will it?”
“I don’t guess it would, no.”
His accent, the way it wrapped around the os, making them sound like two delicious syllables in one, shouldn’t affect her like it always had. Like it still did. To be fair, given her protracted stay Down Under, she’d grown accustomed to the accent in general. It was the deep, smooth timbre of his voice, speaking in that vowel-curling way of his, that rolled right through her like ocean waves relentlessly lapping at the shore. Lapping at her.
“Well, be warned,” she told him, trying to ignore the delicious little shiver that was snaking its way down her spine, and all she was doing was looking at him. “Folks here can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about me, my family, and the entire history of Blueberry Cove, but just know that they’ll also be telling everyone in the Cove every last detail they learn about you, too.”
“Not much different from life in the Downs, then.
”
”
Donna Kauffman (Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3))
“
I still have to buy tonight’s special--unless you’re about to tell me that’s already been handled, too.”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he replied easily. “But then, I just got into town late yesterday, so I’m not fully up to speed yet.”
Oh, he was speedy all right. “It scares me to think what you’ll know after a full twenty-four hours.
”
”
Donna Kauffman (Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3))
“
you're the moon
and the world is
a lonely world; it cries
at the sight of You
for You are glorious
and so out of reach
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
my dreams now look like spears
that i have to hold upside down
clench too tightly and i will bleed
hold too lightly and they will fall
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
there are days when i am a flag of victory
standing firm on a familiar ground; my fabric
without a single crease
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
the most beautiful thing in this world isn’t made
up of particles. it’s the strength of a person who
has seen the collapse of their world, everything
they held dear crashing down in a million pieces.
yet every morning, they wake up and build their
life, all over again. mourning their loss in a
tranquil silence. i haven’t yet seen
anything more astonishingly beautiful.
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Stairway of desires
Loving you feels like loving my own desires,
All of them; and this feeling of loving my own desires,
Feels like a stairway of unending passions and wishes,
Where you and your love is the only wish of all my wishes,
As my heart climbs these steps, one at a time,
I wish the stairs never ended, for loving you is the loveliest time,
And when every step gets me closer to you,
I suddenly miss you, and I sink in the feeling of loving you without you,
For these might be the steps of desires and passions,
But as long as they do not arise from you they are only lesser passions,
That feel red, like the most beautiful red rose,
But what is a red rose worth if it doesn't smell like a rose,
So, I have stopped climbing the staircase of passions and desires,
Because they lead to a conduit feeling which is alien to my love’s true desires,
And if it continues like this, it will become my pernicious act,
Where I will forever be climbing the steps of desires, because it is a never ending act,
A staircase of passions and desires can last forever,
So let me stop on the step where I am now, and love you as if there were no forever,
There were just this step and just this moment, we call now,
Let me know you today, just like I had know you yesterday, to love in better ways now,
For who knows where the staircase might lead,
But I am sure, my wishes and all my desires, just unto you lead,
To you, to your heart, to your desires too,
And let me wait to hear that you feel the same too,
My penitent heart beats tirelessly, as if it has been cursed to throb endlessly,
Just to seek that one wish, one desire, that it loves so endlessly,
It created subsequent ripples of desires to keep finding a reason to throb,
The reason to love you Irma, is what you shall find if you probe the melody of my heart’s every throb,
So here I am standing on the stairway that is made of my desires and endless wishes,
Where every step is nothing but a representation of my desires arising from my wishes,
The wishes that seek you in everything,
Even in the fire that kills the moth, because the fire of passions burns brighter than everything,
Brighter than all stars, brighter than the moon too,
You would indeed feel the same when you fall in love, someday you shall too!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Stairway of desires
Loving you feels like loving my own desires,
All of them; and this feeling of loving my own desires,
Feels like a stairway of unending passions and wishes,
Where you and your love is the only wish of all my wishes,
As my heart climbs these steps, one at a time,
I wish the stairs never ended, for loving you is the loveliest time,
And when every step gets me closer to you,
I suddenly miss you, and I sink in the feeling of loving you without you,
For these might be the steps of desires and passions,
But as long as they do not arise from you they are only lesser passions,
Which feel red, like the most beautiful red rose,
But what is a red rose worth if it doesn't smell like a rose,
So, I have stopped climbing the staircase of passions and desires,
Because they lead to a conduit feeling which is alien to my love’s true desires,
And if it continues like this, it will become my pernicious act,
Where I will forever be climbing the steps of desires, because it can be a never ending act,
A staircase of passions and desires can last forever,
So let me stop on the step where I am now, and love you as if there were no forever,
There were just this step and just this moment, we call now,
Let me know you today, just like I had know you yesterday, to love you in better ways now,
For who knows where the staircase might lead,
But I am sure, my wishes and all my desires, just unto you lead,
To you, to your heart, to your desires too,
And let me wait to hear that you feel the same too,
My penitent heart beats tirelessly, as if it has been cursed to throb endlessly,
Just to seek that one wish, one desire, that it loves so endlessly,
It created subsequent ripples of desires to keep finding a reason to throb,
The reason to love you Irma, is what you shall find if you probe the melody of my heart’s every throb,
So here I am standing on the stairway that is made of my desires and endless wishes,
Where every step is nothing but a representation of my desires arising from my wishes,
The wishes that seek you in everything,
Even in the fire that kills the moth, because the fire of passions burns brighter than everything,
Brighter than all stars, brighter than the moon too,
You would indeed feel the same when you fall in love, and someday you shall too!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Stairway of desires
Loving you feels like loving my own desires,
All of them; and this feeling of loving my own desires,
Feels like a stairway of unending passions and wishes,
Where you and your love is the only wish of all my wishes,
As my heart climbs these steps, one at a time,
I wish the stairs never ended, for loving you is the loveliest time,
And when every step gets me closer to you,
I suddenly miss you, and I sink in the feeling of loving you without you,
For these might be the steps of desires and passions,
But as long as they do not arise from you they are only lesser passions,
Which feel red, like the most beautiful red rose,
But what is a red rose worth if it doesn't smell like a rose,
So, I have stopped climbing the staircase of passions and desires,
Because they lead to a conduit feeling which is alien to my love’s true desires,
And if it continues like this, it will become my pernicious act,
Where I will forever be climbing the steps of desires, because it can be a never ending act,
A staircase of passions and desires can last forever,
So let me stop on the step where I am now, and love you as if there were no forever,
There were just this step and just this moment, we call now,
Let me know you today, just like I had known you yesterday, only to love you in better ways now,
For who knows where the staircase might lead,
But I am sure, my wishes and all my desires, just unto you lead,
To you, to your heart, to your desires too,
And let me wait to hear that you feel the same too,
My penitent heart beats tirelessly, as if it has been cursed to throb endlessly,
Just to seek that one wish, one desire, that it loves so endlessly,
It created subsequent ripples of desires to keep finding a reason to throb,
The reason to love you Irma, is what you shall find if you probe the melody of my heart’s every throb,
So here I am standing on the stairway that is made of my desires and endless wishes,
Where every step is nothing but a representation of my desires arising from my wishes,
The wishes that seek you in everything,
Even in the fire that kills the moth, because the fire of passions burns brighter than everything,
Brighter than all stars, brighter than the moon too,
You would indeed feel the same when you fall in love, and someday you shall too!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
It's today: all of yesterday dropped away
among the fingers of the light and the sleeping eyes.
Tomorrow will come on its green footsteps;
no one can stop the river of the dawn.
No one can stop the river of your hands,
your eyes and their sleepiness, my dearest.
You are the trembling of time, which passes
between the vertical light and the darkening sky.
The sky folds its wings over you,
lifting you, carrying you to my arms
with its punctual, mysterious courtesy.
That is why I sing to the day and to the moon,
to the sea, to time, to all the planets,
to your daily voice, to your nocturnal skin.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
“
you are
the peace after wars
the calm after storms
and everything
insanely beautiful
that shapes after
a tragedy
”
”
Noor Unnahar (Yesterday I Was the Moon)
“
Ilse and I had a fight yesterday about which we’d rather be Joan of Arc or Frances Willard. We didn’t begin it as a fight but just as an argewment but it ended that way. I would rather be Frances Willard because she is alive.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Emily of New Moon)