We are not lovers
because of the love
we make
but the love
we have
We are not friends
because of the laughs
we spend
but the tears
we save

I don't want to be near you
for the thoughts we share
but the words we never have
to speak
I will never miss you
because of what we do
but what we are
together

credits to Nikki Giovanni

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

credits to Derek Walcott

credits to Frida Kahlo

“I really like you, Midori. A lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

“Like a spring bear,” I said.

“A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.”

“You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?”

“Yeah. Really nice.”

“That’s how much I like you.”

― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“... the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder and more generous, and more forgiving - and then appreciate them for what they can teach you, and try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad - or good - it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”

― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

credits to Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I choose to love you in silence…

For in silence I find no rejection,

I choose to love you in loneliness…

For in loneliness no one owns you but me,

I choose to adore you from a distance…

For distance will shield me from pain,

I choose to kiss you in the wind…

For the wind is gentler than my lips,

I choose to hold you in my dreams…

For in my dreams, you have no end.

― Rumi

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —

even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving

to be a bud on a Spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death

of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing

on the surface of the river.

And I am the bird

that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily

in the clear water of a pond.

And I am the grass-snake

that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.

And I am the arms merchant,

selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,

refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean

after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am the pirate,

my heart not yet capable

of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,

with plenty of power in my hands.

And I am the man who has to pay

his “debt of blood” to my people

dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm

it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.

My pain is like a river of tears,

so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart

can be left open,

the door of compassion.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

credits to Raymond Carver

Time and time I go back,
To the memory of a person who loved me without holding back.
As a child, before a castle of greatness I always stood.
To see the kind who never left me feeling misunderstood.
He would put his crown down and leave his throne.
He would run out to me and make me feel like the world was my own.
With the world in his eyes,
He looked at me like he was seeing an angel from the skies.
He would listen to every story I had,
No matter how happy it was or how sad.
One day I came to the kingdom.
I knocked and knocked.
I waited and waited.
With tears in my eyes, my heart was grasping to rest.
Who would have though what would happen next?
The door opened and there stood the queen.
The look on her face was not one with which she was ever seen.
“He’s gone”, she said.
She put her hand under my chin to raise my head.
My tears would be black if my heart could speak
Never in my life did I ever feel so weak.
The king of my heart was gone.
My father left me. How could I ever move on?
It’s been years but I am still heart-broken.
How could a heart heal from the loss of its own medicine?
I pray every night for the strength to accept that my happiness must be without you.
I pray every night that with pride in your heart I left you.
I can feel your love wiping the tears from my cheeks.
For every night my pen writes on withered paper and your contentment
With me it seeks.
Through my thoughts and through my words, I reunite with you.
I will be strong because I know that being weak would hurt you.
I love you.
Father, I love you.

—Najwa Zebian