Vladimir Nabokov, From Letters To Véra

or·phic

/ˈôrfik/

adjective mysterious and entrancing; beyond ordinary understanding.

Charles Baudelaire, from The Flowers of Evil: Poems; "The Possessed,"

“—I want to change: I want to stop fear’s subtle / guidance of my life—”

— Frank Bidart, from Half-light: Collected Poems; “California Plush”

Alejandra Pizarnik, "Silences" from Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 - 1972

“You have it now and that is all your life is; now. There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that?”

— For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

"And Cain says, “When you split me and my brother in the womb, you did not divide us evenly. He got kindness, and I got longing. He got complacence, and I got ambition. I want to kill him sometimes. I think sometimes he wants to die.”

- Nathaniel Orion, "Hevel"

Alejandra Pizarnik, "Silences" from Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 - 1972

“Aphrodite, the queen of the senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious aim unto themselves; She is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous night, she is goddess of destruction,”

— D. H. Lawrence, from Selected Poems and Writings; “The Lemon Gardens,” (via violentwavesofemotion)

Franz Wright, from Earlier Poems; “Poem in Three Parts: 2. The Wound”

[Text ID: The wound that never healed but learned to sing.]

“The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.”

— Barry H. Gillespie