longing

A pine tree standeth lonelyIn the North on an upland bare;It standeth whitely shroudedWith snow, and sleepeth there.It dreameth of a Palm treeWhich far in the East alone,In the mournful silence standethOn its ridge of burning stone.

I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps outLooking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I watched the spinning stars, grateful, sad and proud, as only a man who has outlived his destiny and realizes he might yet forge himself another, can be.

You are ice and fire The touch of you burns my hands like snow

You told me mornings were the best time to break your own heart. So here I am, smoking your brand of cigarettes for the scent. I wonder if you still sing Beatles songs as you make coffee. You said your mother used to sing them to you when you couldn__ sleep, nineteen years before we met, twenty before you moved your clothes out of our closet while I was at work. By the way, I hate you for leaving all the photographs on the fridge. Taking them down felt like peeling off new scabs, like slapping a sunburn. I spent so many nights carving your body into pillows, I can promise you nothing feels like sleeping with your arm around me and your breath in my ear. Still, it__ comforting to know we sleep under the same moon, even if she__ so much older when she gets to me. I like to imagine she__ seen you sleeping and wants me to know you__e doing well.

How happy he must be, this Hobgoblin," exclaimed Sniff."He isn't a bit," replied Snufkin, "and he won't be until he finds the King's Ruby. It's almost as big as the black panther's head, and to look into it is like looking at leaping flames. The Hobgoblin has looked for the King's Ruby on all the planets including Neptune -- but he hasn't found it. Just now he has gone off to the moon to search in the craters, but he hasn't much hope of success, because in his heart of hearts the Hobgoblin believes that the King's Ruby lies in the sun, where he can never go because it is too hot.

Maybe he would see me as weak and stupid. Maybe he was right.

If he would see me again, I would die happy. In the meantime, I was merely dying.

If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. Butafter all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted amountain high! A hill wasn't enough.

I have laughter and amazement, not search results. I have unexpected longings, not hierarchical ratings.

We are homesick most for the places we have never known.

you came in slowly like the fogand consumed me.

i swallowed the syllables of your nameand i was full.

Not that time alone with Ingrid was something to wish away. She'd chosen him. Given herself to him, and even though he couldn't claim her in the human way, she was still his. Passing the day and night in the quiet town home was giving him a taste of his fantasy, sweet as meringue and just as easily dissolved.

Or deep down, maybe there was more. Maybe I wanted someone to figure out who wrote the note and secretly come to my rescue.Maybe. I don__ know. But I was careful never to give myself away.

Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.

Anna would like you, he thinks, looking into her face. Anna would like you.

Our deepest longings and the question of who we are intended to be cuts us in half, dividing us within ourselves. At critical stages and significant moments in the course of life, we sink with the weight of our own questions; we drown in our own psyche in order to reach a subtle ground that secretly sustains our every breath. In that sense, all separations, splits, and conflicts are evidence of a unity we long to find, both individually and collectively.