And In A Windowless Attic Some Of Me Is In The Smoke Rising From The Chimney

I am the fire, says the fire. My body is a graveyard,

says the landscape. You’re welcome, says the landscape.

- Richard Siken, Landscape with Several Small Fires

The first rule of war is sympathy with the enemy.

Simon Critchley, Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us

How do you capture someone who was always slipping away?

Niall Williams, History of the Rain

As far as words go, crying is louder and weeping is wetter.

- Heather Christle, The Crying Book

There is no question I am someone starving. There is no question I am making this journey to find out what that appetite is. And I see him free of it, as if he had simply crossed to the other side of the bridge, I see desire set free in him like some ray of mysterious light. Now tell me the truth, would you cross that bridge if you came to it? And where, if you made the grave choice to give up bread, would it take you?

Anne Carson, Kinds of Water

Seam: ‘Interviewer’s Note IV’ by Tarfia Faizullah

Fragmentary Face of King Khafre

ca. 2520-2494 BCE | Old Kingdom, Egypt | Egyptian alabaster

the beauty’s really in the movement, in watching your mouth try to swallow despair.

- Heather Christle, The Crying Book

It was all infinite emptiness, except when we were together making love. And even then I dreaded the moments to come, when he would be gone. I experienced pleasure like a future pain.

Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

You never refuse. You simply don't speak.

Alicja Rybałko, A Prayer for the Forbidden Fruit tr. Regina Grol