Peony in Love

He was in my hair, my eyes, my fingers, my heart. I day-dreamed about what he was doing, thinking, seeing, smelling, feeling. I could not eat for thoughts of him.

In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are if only.

I've come to believe that part of lovesickness comes from this conflict between control and desire. In love we have no control. Our hearts and minds are tormented, teased, enticed and delighted by the overwhelming strength of emotions that make us try to forget the real world.

All women on earth-- and men, too for that matter-- hope for the kind of love that transforms us, raises us up out of the everyday, & gives us the courage to survive our little deaths: the heartache of unfulfilled dreams, of career and personal disappointments, of broken love affairs.

When people are alive they love, when they die, they keep loving. If love ends when person dies, that is not real love

How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming -- weren't our dreams what gave us strength, hope, and desire?

My heart is empty & my life has no value anymore. Each moment a thousand tears.

Perhaps he was afraid as I was that we'd be caught. Or perhaps he was breathing me in just as I was letting him come into my lungs, my eyes, my heart.

I didn't know you would be here last night, but you were. We can't fight fate. Instead, we must accept that fate has given us a special opportunity.

My love for him had never gone away but only changed, growing deeper like wine fermenting or pickles curing. It bore into me with the pervasiveness of water working its way to the center of a mountain.

The greatest calling of all is to have a literary life.

Poetry is on earth to make you serene, not corrupt your mind, thoughts,or emotions

Gone were my girlish ideas about romantic love and my later ideas about sexual love. From Yi, I learned to appreciate deep-heart love.

So many mistakes. So many errors. So much tragedy as a result. In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are if only.

I saw that deep-heart love meant loving someone in spite of and because of his limitations.

When in the world did anyone die from a dream?

I want a marriage of companions—one of shared lives and shared poems,' he murmured. 'If we were husband and wife, we would collect books, read, and drink tea together. As I told you before, I'd want you for what's in here.' Again he pointed to my heart, but I felt it in a place far lower in my body.