“When pain brings you down, don't be silly, don't close your eyes and cry, you just might be in the best position to see the sun shine.” 

― Alanis Morissette

beginning tomorrow
everything will change
I will start dying assiduously
wisely optimistically
without wasting time

Tadeusz Rozewicz  (tr. Magnus J. Krynski & Robert A. Maguire)

What am I, that I should stand

so apart from my own happiness?

Carl Phillips, “Heaven and Earth,” in The Art of Daring.

Love is a fire
It burns everyone
It disfigures everyone
It is the world's excuse
for being ugly

Love Is A Fire
by Leonard Cohen

I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

Mark Strand

I believe everything
will be taken from us. Then given back
when it’s no longer what we want.

—	Dean Young, from “Frottage,” Strike Anywhere

Emptiness,
my only love,
give me rest.

“Untitled” by Tomaž Šalamun

What is my heart to you
that you must break it over and over …

 Louise Glück, from “Matins”, in ‘The Blue Iris

holes in the puzzle, puzzle in the holes

Just when we start to believe in moonlight
we notice how many stars it erases.

- Rick Jackson

There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.

—  A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Enough seen….Enough had….Enough…

     —Arthur Rimbaud

  “How can you cry for one ruined life, Maria,
when you could be grieving for heaven?”  

 Maria Hummel, from “One Life”