Melissa

“It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.”
― Ismail Kadare, Broken April

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”
― Hamilton Wright Mabie

“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