cate

he wanted to be unknown, unpossessed by others’ knowledge of him. that was freedom. 

ling ma — severance

hungry for touch & ashamed to be looked at

safia elhillo — "summer" in girls that never die

all perception is a form of being touched, and all touch is metamorphosis. 

andreas weber, trans. rory bradley  — matter & desire: an erotic ecology

you were so afraid anyone might touch you. you had always been afraid of anyone touching you, you had not known your longing flinch was so obvious to those who tried it.

tamsyn muir — gideon the ninth

you were suspicious of their feelings because you had no reason to love yourself—not your body, not your mind. you rejected so much gentleness. what were you looking for? 

carmen maria machado — in the dream house

love is an illusion, but i would willingly fall for it if i could believe in it.

sylvia plath — unabridged journals

how do you love another person? how do you trust another person to love you? i had no idea. i thought that love was loss.

jeanette winterson — why be happy when you could be normal?

i wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.

charles bukowski — what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

the me you see isn't me — i am my ghost.

mahmoud darwish, trans. john berger and rema hammami  — "mural"

i was a vacant room. inside, the music produces only a dry, hollow eco.

haruki murakami — the wind-up bird chronicle

how i devour everything. empty vessel, i take all of it in, so i can give you this thing.

cynthia cruz — "fragment" in hotel oblivion

receive this face of mine, mute and begging. receive this love that i ask for. receive the part of me that is you.

alejandra pizarnik — "on your anniversary" in extracting the stone of madness

self-portraiture as wish, as howl for love that says love me this way, not as i was. as this.

daniel sarah karasik — "rehearsal" in plenitude

it's been a long time since i've been me.

fernando pessoa — the book of disquietude

i wanted to clarify and explain myself. instead, i said nothing, afraid to break character. the hope of pretending is that, with enough time and practice, the performance becomes you. 

cyrus grace dunham — a year without a name

the shame of being seen consumes me.

cynthia cruz — “diagnosis” in the glimmering room

i am being devoured, dismembered, by love. no self—no freedom; everything, and all of me, outside, entangled, given. 

anaïs nin

if those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them, they could perceive what they have made of us.

albert camus, trans. ryan bloom — notebooks 1951-1959

“what were you before you met me?" "i think i was drowning." "and what are you now?" "water.”

ocean vuong — on earth we're briefly gorgeous 

without love, we lose the ability to possess a proper identity, within love, there is a constant confirmation of our selves. to be seen is to be assured that we exist.

alain de botton — essays in love

like any unloved thing, i don’t know if i’m real when i’m not being touched.

natalie wee — our bodies & other fine machines

it is dawn now & to you, i am no one. i wanted love, so i opened my mouth,

uma dwivedi — "aubade with the bleeding sky"

it’s a myth that love lives in the heart          it lives in the throat we push it out when we speak when we gasp we take a little for ourselves

kaveh akbar — "heritage"

i’ve meant to tell you many things about my life, & every time the moment has conquered me. the centre of me is always & eternally a terrible pain a curious wild pain—a searching beyond what the world contains, something transfigured & infinite—i don’t find it, i don’t think it is to be found.

alice notley — "i’ve meant to tell you many things about my life"

do not worry if you find nothing. this is what i tell myself. do not worry. the search alone is beautiful.

omar sakr — “how to endure the final hours” in the lost arabs

i can only find you by looking deeper, that’s how love leads us into the world.

anne michaels — “the second search” in skin divers

love's merciless, the way it travels in and keeps emitting light.

kim addonizio — “stolen moments”

i cannot love what i can’t conceive, and you disclose virtually nothing —we are left to think you couldn’t possibly exist. is this what you mean us to think?

louise glück — "matins"

everything i know about you, i know it from the absence of you.

noor unnahar — "[lucid dreaming]" in new names for lost things

your love for me does not inhabit the real world. yes, it is love, i do not deny it. but not every love has a course to run, smooth or otherwise, and this love has no course at all. 

iris murdoch — a severed head

it is possible to love without purpose. it is possible to walk far into another and find only yourself. if there is a right action of the throat, it is to say: i tried, i stayed a long time there. 

joanna klink — the nightfields

you cannot save people. you can only love them. you can’t transform them, you can only console them.

anaïs nin

in books love can be war-ending       a soldier drops his sword to lie forking oysters into his enemy's mouth        in life we hold love up to the light to marvel at its impotence