I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.

Haruki Murakami

“The names are the names of our kids. But, you know, we trust her implicitly. She’s very sensitive to any of that stuff. And obviously the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names. But I mean, what an honor. We thought it was pretty damn amazing. We still do. You know, I still walk down the street and shake my head thinking, ‘I can’t believe that happened.’ [On whether the kids knew about the song] We surprised them with it. Yeah. They didn’t know. They had no idea. We don’t tell them anything, we find they’re most compliant if you offer them no access to outside information.”

– Ryan Reynolds on Taylor using names on his daughters for song characters (SiriusXM, August 5th 2021)

photo source

Katatsumori (Naomi Kawase, 1994)

How do we light ourselves up again, / after so many cycles of smoke and spark, / how do we let rage lava into birth?

— Tamiko Beyer, from “Experiment in Revolution, 2020,” Last Days

The prettier the garden, the dirtier the hands of the gardener.

B. E. Barnes

I believe that our journey in this universe is not to reach a conclusion but instead to just keep expanding towards the unknown.

I need you to be here when I wake up. Not just texting me, ‘good morning babe’ but actually here, in my bed, with me. I need you to wake me up by kissing me softly. I need you to wrap your arms around me and hold me close. I need you to caress my face. I need to feel safe and calm and the only one who can make me feel that, is you. I need you.

June Jordan, "Resolution #1,003." Haruko/Love Poems

Your voice..it’s just feels like home. I miss it. I miss all of you so much.

Us unfolding our legs to come closer to the ground. You, gorgeous mosaic of fragments, loss, survival. Me, impossible to live in a body not set trembling like a cello string. So we do. / Attend the world’s every move and come undone at every line.

— Tamiko Beyer, from “Subterranean Haibuns,” Last Days

When I say, I love you, it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are.

Joss Whedon

Katatsumori (Naomi Kawase, 1994)

It’s beautiful thing when you get so comfortable with someone and you realize you’re telling them things you’ve never even said out loud before.

Jean-Paul Sartre, from No Exit: And Three Other Plays; “No Exit”

Text ID: I’m always conscious of myself—in my mind. Painfully conscious.

The best love story is when you fall in love with the most unexpected person at the most unexpected time.

I wanted to be that person you could never forget about.

At any given point you have the power to say, this is not how the story is going to end.

Unknown

Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1933)