aurora

“To feel anything
deranges you. To be seen
feeling anything strips you
naked. In the grip of it
pleasure or pain doesn’t
matter. You think what
will they do what new
power will they acquire if
they see me naked like
this. If they see you
feeling. You have no idea
what. It’s not about them.
To be seen is the penalty.”
― Anne Carson, Red Doc>

“Rationality is not unnecessary. It serves the chaos of knowledge. It serves feeling. It serves to get from this place to that place. But if you don't honor those places, then the road is meaningless. Too often, that's what happens with the worship of rationality and that circular, academic, analytic thinking. But ultimately, I don't see feel/think as a dichotomy. I see them as a choice of ways and combinations.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“Sandalwood"


The ash keeps dropping from the incense stick.

I keep turning you over in my mind.
I keep turning you over in my heart.

The stick shortens, burning.
The ash grows
and falls.

I keep turning you over.
I keep turning you.
I keep turning.

The ash keeps falling, piling up, more
of the silent reduction.

Burning earns such clean wages,
eye of ember, eye of ash hastening.

I keep turning your eyes over
to find your thoughts.
Turning your voice over
to find your meaning.
Turning your body over to find
a place to hide me.

And you keep turning inside me.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“We will not drink from the same cup -
Neither water nor sweet wine is ours,
We will not kiss as the sun goes up
Or gaze at the night, on the sill, for hours.
I breathe by the moon, you – by the sun”
― Anna Akhmatova