Books Are Letters In Bottles, Cast Into The Waves Of Time, From One Person Trying To Save The World,

I would rather die in your arms than live a thousand years alone.

cuz i’m pretty when i cry

I’ll tell you something right now,

I’m terrified of burning my whole life down.

You’ve waited far too long

for someone to color your heart with tenderness,

to hang love like art on the bare walls of your soul.

But time slipped through like candlelight,

and in the quiet,

dust gathered where laughter should’ve lived,

cobwebs clung to dreams left untouched.

Still, you wait—

romantic, patient, aching—

a heart dressed in longing,

hoping love will one day come

and call this place home.

You who never arrived

Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start, I don’t even know what songs

would please you. I have given up trying

to recognize you in the surging wave of the next

moment. All the immense

images in me—the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,

cities, towers, and bridges, and un- suspected turns in the path,

and those powerful lands that were once

pulsing with the life of the gods— all rise within me to mean

you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all

the gardens I have ever gazed at,

longing. An open window in a country house—, and you almost

stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,— you had just walked down them and vanished.

And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back

my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same

bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening…

Du im Voraus

Du im Voraus

verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene,

nicht weiß ich, welche Töne dir lieb sind.

Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommende wogt,

zu erkennen. Alle die großen

Bildern in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft,

Städte und Türme und Brücken und un-

vermutete Wendung der Wege

und das Gewaltige jener von Göttern

einst durchwachsenen Länder:

steigt zur Bedeutung in mir

deiner, Entgehende, an.

Ach, die Gärten bist du,

ach, ich sah sie mit solcher

Hoffnung. Ein offenes Fenster

im Landhaus—, und du tratest beinahe

mir nachdenklich heran. Gassen fand ich,—

du warst sie gerade gegangen,

und die spiegel manchmal der Läden der Händler

waren noch schwindlich von dir und gaben erschrocken

mein zu plötzliches Bild.—Wer weiß, ob derselbe

Vogel nicht hinklang durch uns

gestern, einzeln, im Abend?

Fuck restaurants and arcades.

Take my hand and bring me here for our first date.