Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Wisława Szymborska
“Do you still think about him?” 
“But I’m not crying.”

Wisława Szymborska
Everything’s mine but just on loan,
nothing for the memory to hold,
though mine as long as I look.

Wisława Szymborska
Metaphors teach the mind
to enjoy error
and to learn
from the juxtaposition of what is and what is not the case.

Anne Carson
WHY ISN’T IT OKAY TO SAY THERE ARE
THINGS WE HAVE NOT SURVIVED?

Andrea Gibson
GIVE ME THE PALM OF YOUR
HAND.

I’d like to be kind to myself
in every way.

César Vallejo
Fósforo y fósforo en la oscuridad,
lágrima y lágrima en la polvareda.

César Vallejo
Absence has not just been a lack or a gap; 
it has been the very condition of trace and presence.

Jacques Derrida
The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need 
and the unreasonable silence of the world.

Albert Camus
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Lord,
when you send the rain,
think about the roof,
think about the water
coming through the ceiling.

James Baldwin
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Mary Oliver