This Tremendous World I Have Inside Of Me. How To Free Myself, And This World, Without Tearing Myself

Zhang Jiuling, ed. by Jane Portal, from Chinese Love Poetry; “Looking at the moon and longing for a distant lover”

“Maybe I live inside myself too much and maybe that is my greatest downfall.”

— Megan Grant, Solitude & the Sea

yes, love is work. but love must be two-sided. we are raised to give ourselves until we are drained. if they do not reciprocate, it isn’t love. love isn’t pouring gasoline down the drain in the hope the sparks you felt might light a fire that keeps you warm. love is coming in out of the cold, knowing they’ll already have made you a cup of cocoa.

They leave and act like it never happened and they come back and act like they never left

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.”

— Osho

“Oh, to be in love…

…with someone capable of loving me.”

I can’t live without her (…) I couldn’t live with her either.

Franz Kafka, from The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923; “February 14, 1914”

unstoppable force (wanting to be the kindest version of myself) vs immovable object (all the anger and hatred I have inside myself)

i don't pay attention to the world ending. it has ended for me many times and began again in the morning.

― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt