Amelia

“You, yesterday’s boy,
to whom confusion came:
Listen, lest you forget who you are.

It was not pleasure you fell into. It was joy.
You were called to be bridegroom,
though the bride coming toward you is your shame.

What chose you is the great desire.
Now all flesh bares itself to you.

On pious images pale cheeks
blush with a strange fire.
Your senses uncoil like snakes
awakened by the beat of the tambourine.

Then suddenly you’re left all alone
with your body that can’t love you
and your will that can’t save you.

But now, like a whispering in dark streets,
rumors of God run through your dark blood.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“She began to understand why lovers talk baby talk to one another. There was no other socially acceptable circumstance in which the children inside her were permitted to come out. If the one-year-old, the five-year- old, the twelve-year-old, and the twenty-year-old all find compatible personalities in the beloved, there is a real chance to keep all of these sub-personas happy. Love ends their long loneliness. Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship.”
― Carl Sagan, Contact

“The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.”
― Jostein Gaarder

“No matter how good you are with words, it’s inevitable that meaning is lost between your mind and someone else’s. Trying to communicate is like throwing a cup of water at a thirsty person’s face. It’s better than nothing, sure, and a teaspoon of water might hit their lips, but oh, God, there’s just so much water in the grass.”
― Jacqueline Novak, How to Weep in Public: Feeble Offerings on Depression from One Who Knows