Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),

Edgar Allan Poe, The Penguin Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe; from 'To Helen'

When you realise things aren’t going as terribly as you thought they’d be

‭"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

— Matthew 22:37-40 (KJV‬)

The promises you'd made to me were only in my head after all. I believed in your return the way someone believes in things they are certain of. Irrevocable facts. Grass is green. The sky is blue. You'd come back to me. Next month. Or maybe next year. I waited. I left the window open. I brewed two cups of coffee every morning just to pour the cold leftovers down the sink. I had your number on speed dial, knew it by heart, yet never rang it. I was used to not hearing from you, but the last words you said to me were seared into my brain. "I'd wait for you." But you didn't. Not like I did for you. See, I had this picture of you in my mind. Slightly warped - blurred. Your mouth a red slash in a pale face. Your smile sharp enough to hurt. We choose what we want to remember, I think. I remembered the softness in your gaze when you watched me underneath the street lights and the way you held my hand when I needed you to. Maybe I should've recalled how you looked at me when I said goodbye for what both of us knew was going to be the last time for quite a while. Because you didn't - you did not look at me at all. And maybe it's time for me to stop seeing you in everyone I meet. Maybe it's time I closed the window.

you'd come back to me closed windows / n.j.

Ama Codjoe, from Bluest Nude: Poems; “Bluest Nude”

[Text ID: “I crave. I want to be seen clearly or not at all.”]

Miranda July, The First Bad Man

Rebecca Perry, Beauty/Beauty; from 'Kintsugi 金継ぎ'

— Carol Rifka Brunt in Tell The Wolves I'm Home

"Days will pass, and you'll abandon things you were addicted to, and leave someone, and cancel a dream, and finally, accept a reality."

– Nizar Qabbani

"I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot explain it to myself."

- Franz Kafka

Albert Camus, from a letter to Maria Casarès written in August 1948