[...] There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me.
Nay, wherefore should they? Since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself.
Shakespeare
(Richard III)
Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way,
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, and charming – never mind!
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth -
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!
Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn’t got time for the waiting game
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I’ll spend with you
These precious days I’ll spend with you
Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart.
Never give up, never lose hope.
Allah says, The broken are my beloved.
Crush your heart. Be broken.
Abu Saeed Abil Kheir
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
“To be truly selfish, one needs a degree of self-esteem. The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unattainable, envy takes the place of greed.”
“We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.”
“If after I am free a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. I can be perfectly happy by myself. With freedom, flowers, books and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy? But if after I am free, a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me, I would come back again and again and beg to be admitted, so that I might share in what I was entitled to share in. If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation, as the most terrible mode in which disgrace could be inflicted on me, But that could not be. I have a right to share in sorrow, and he who can look at the lovliness of the world and share its sorrow, and realize something of the wonder of both, is in immediate contact with divine things, and has got as near to God’s secret as anyone can get.”
“Joshua!”, she shouts
There, across the street:
“Josh! Josh!”
I see her silhouetted
against the night sky,
In the balcony through the trees.
It rains, the streetlights tell me.
She cries out again:
“Josh! Josh-ooo-aa!”
A friend some houses up
I presume.
I sit in my darkness
and listen to her.
Again and again and again,
growing agitated slowly.
Wouldn’t it be nice, I ask
If I were him?
If i was Joshua and
this girl across the street was
calling to me?
I crane my neck slightly.
“Joshua, stand up!”
What is this? I ask myself.
“Are you talking to me?”, I call out.
“Yes!”
“I’m not Joshua.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I return to my darkness.