Melissa

“How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin’s bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

- Love Song”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose

“Just like moons and suns,
With certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.”
― Maya Angelou

“I killed a plant once because I gave
it too much water. Lord, I worry
that love is violence.”
― José Olivarez, Citizen Illegal

“We never know the quality of someone else's life, though we seldom resist the temptation to assume and pass judgement.”
― Tami Hoag, Dark Horse