“GUIL : If we go there’s no knowing. ROS : No knowing what? GUIL : If we’ll ever come back. ROS : We don’t want to come back. GUIL : That may well be true, but do we want to go? ROS : We’ll be free. GUIL : I don’t know. It’s the same sky.”

— Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (via antigonick)

“I enjoy controlled loneliness. I like wandering around the city alone. I’m not afraid of coming back to an empty flat and lying down in an empty bed. I’m afraid of having no one to miss, of having no one to love.”

— Kuba Wojewodzki 

what a mother does for you out of obligation vs what a mother does for you because she wants to. the taste of a cup of coffee made from obligation vs. the taste of a cup of coffee made. did you raise me because you wanted to or did you raise me because you had to, because i was in your home and you thought, i have to put food in every mouth under this roof. did you look at me with love or did you look at me. did you ever look at me? did you ever see me? did you want to? do you want to still? if i asked you to love me would you laugh? would you ask me why? would you tell me to not ask such stupid questions? would you go to bed and wonder to yourself, why does she think i don't love her? i've done everything for her i've bathed her i've clothed her i've fed her i kept a roof over her head. isn't that love? do you even know? do you know what love looks like? did your mother love you? did she make you coffee? can you tell me what it tasted like?

Olga Berggolts, from The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry; “Ordeal”

Text ID: ...the strength / to see and recognize / how all you have ever loved / will [...] torment you.

The End of the Pier - Nicole Callihan

“And the night smells like snow. Walking home for a moment you almost believe you could start again. And an intense love rushes to your heart, and hope. It’s unendurable, unendurable.”

— Franz Wright, closing lines to “Night Walk” from God’s Silence