Diva

“The tongue may hide the truth but the eyes—never!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“I hadn't told them about you,
But they saw you bathing in my eyes.
I hadn't told them about you,
But they saw you in my written words.
The perfume of love cannot be concealed.”
― Nizar Qabbani, Arabian Love Poems: Full Arabic and English Texts

“I broke with the sun and stars. I let the world go.
I went far and deep with the knapsack of things I know.
I made the journey, bought the useless, found the indefinite,
And my heart is the same as it was: a sky and a desert.
I failed in what I was, in what I wanted, in what I discovered.
I’ve no soul left for light to arouse or darkness to smother.
I’m nothing but nausea, nothing but reverie, nothing but longing.
I’m something very far removed, and I keep going
Just because my I feels cozy and profoundly real,
Stuck like a wad of spit to one of the world’s wheels.”
― Fernando Pessoa, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems

“There is usually a Marxist moment in every relationship, the moment when it becomes clear that love is reciprocated. The way it is resolved depends on the balance between self-love and self-hatred. If self-hatred gains the upper hand, then the one who has received love will declare that the beloved (on some excuse or other) is not good enough for them (not good enough by virtue of associating with no-goods). But if self-love gains the upper hand, both partners may accept that seeing their love reciprocated is not proof of how low the beloved is, but of how lovable they have themselves turned out to be.”
― Alain de Botton, Essays In Love