Nicole Smiley

“Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—really want him—it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

“I don’t know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals.”
― Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper

“My life is like an autumn leaf
I lie around unclaimed.
The breeze blows me around,
To be trampled under the feet of men.
Natures cruel feast has bestowed me with pain,
Pain of being a part,
Just a part of someone.
Pain of departing,
Departing from that one.
Pick me up like a rose,
And hold me to your heart.
Keep me there till he does not come.
And when he comes do a good deed,
Dig the earth below,
And bury me deep
For I don't want to lie around,
Unclaimed, unloved.”
― Dr. Amit Abraham

“She'd been in love with the man, and love is a scary thing. If not reciprocated, it can turn a person into a monster.”
― Michele Young-Stone, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors