“Take what people give you and let that be enough. Because people usually give all they’re capable of giving, the way they’re capable of giving it, and expecting more than that is just setting the relationship up to fail.”
— Jamie Raintree, Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard
“Almost every time I go to this cafe in the late afternoon, I see the couple sitting at the same window table. They are both attractive, middle aged, and well dressed. The one really noticeable thing about them is the woman’s auburn red hair. I’m always pleased to see them because they appear to be genuinely content with each other’s company. They are almost always reading magazines or newspapers and drinking something. They rarely speak to each other but there is a peace around them, a balance you can almost physically see in certain couples. When one has finished with their reading material they automatically hand it to their partner. The other takes it without a word and lays it down on the seat between them. The person without the magazine drinks their coffee or looks out the window until the other is finished reading. Then they talk for a brief time, sometimes laughing quietly, always paying full attention to what is being said. They are like an island of tranquility in the middle of all the human rush. Seeing them, watching them, invariably makes me feel a little better.”
“The cities around the world
come undone
after you leave the first time.
Manhattan takes off her favorite dress.
Burns it and wears the smoke
as perfume.
Rome weeps from her grave.
Knows what it’s like to watch the monuments tumble.
The statues resolve to dust.
I gather light for your shadows to stay dancing.
I write you as a traveler.
Let the ghosts all know that you’re coming back. Or else, I stop waiting for you. Your doorstep becomes a graveyard I don’t visit anymore.
Your heart:
a legend I stop telling
the tourists about.
The memory of you becomes quiet,
and I forget to listen for
its voice. Eventually,
the fallen heroes will find me.
The Alexander the Great’s
and the Cleopatra’s. Tell me it was naive
to think I could have ever kept
that kind of holiness to myself.”
— Y.Z, for the hopeless and the hopeful (via rustyvoices)
