The wounds that last forever are not the ones caused by physical harm but by words uttered by a loved one.
Must remember henceforth to shut up when angry.
Must remember henceforth to shut up when angry.
Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.You may house their bodies but not their souls,For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them,but seek not to make them like you.For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.You are the bows from which your childrenas living arrows are sent forth.The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,and He bends you with His mightthat His arrows may go swift and far.Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;For even as He loves the arrow that flies,so He loves also the bow that is stable.- Khalil Gibran
It so happens I am sick of being a man.And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie housesdried up, waterproof, like a swan made of feltsteering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nailsand my hair and my shadow.It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelousto terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.It would be great to go through the streets with a green knifeletting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don't want so much misery.I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,half frozen, dying of grief.
That's why Monday, when it sees me comingwith my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestineshanging over the doors of houses that I hate,and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,there are mirrors that ought to have wept from shame and terror,there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,my rage, forgetting everything,I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:underwear, towels and shirts from which slowdirty tears are falling.- Pablo Neruda