Mary Beth

“schools for love do not exist. everyone assumes that we will know how to love instinctively.
despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we still accept that the family is the primary school for love.
those of us who do not learn how to love among family are expected to experience love in romantic relationships. however this love often eludes us.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper
might have used the word massive,
as if a mountain range had opened
inside her, but instead

it used the word suddenly, a light coming on

in an empty room. The telephone

fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating
something happened, something awful

a sunday, dusky. If it had been

terminal, we could have cradled her
as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,

said good-bye. But it was sudden,

how overnight we could be orphaned
& the world became a bell we'd crawl inside
& the ringing all we'd eat.”
― Nick Flynn

“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner's love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother's love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.”
― bell hooks