Lena

“Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is

the one you love. And easily proved.
Did not Helen, who far surpassed
all in beauty, desert the best of men
her husband and king

and sail off to Troy and forget
her daughter and dear parents? Merely
love's gaze made her bend
and led her

from her path.
These tales
remind me now of Anaktoria
who is gone.

And I would rather see her supple step
and motion of light on her face
than chariots of the Lydians or ranks
of foot soldiers in bronze.

Now this is impossible
yet among the living I pray for a share

and unexpectedly”
― Sappho

“Do you know how to live three hundred years?” she says. And when he asks how, she smiles. “The same way you live one. A second at a time.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“But this is how you walk to the end of the world. This is how you live forever. Here is one day, and here is the next, and the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it’s gone.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue