Love

Excerpts
[…]
The Little Prince went to look at the roses again.
“You’re not at all like my rose. You’re nothing at all yet,” he told them.
“No one has tamed you and you haven’t tamed anyone. You’re the way
my fox was. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But
I’ve made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in all the world.”
And the roses were humbled.
You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on. One couldn’t die for you.
Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like
you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you
together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put
under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since
she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or
three for butterflies). Since she’s the one I listened to when she
complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said
nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.”
And he went back to the fox.
“Good-bye,” he said.
“Goodbye,” said the fox. Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One
sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the
eyes.”
“Anything essential is invisible to the eyes,” the little prince repeated,
in order to remember.
“It’s the time you spend on your rose that makes your rose so
important.”
“It’s the time I spent on my rose…,” the little prince repeated, in order
to remember.
“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t
forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.
You’re responsible for your rose…”
“I’m responsible for my rose…,” the little prince repeated, in order to
remember.
[…]
Now my sorrow is comforted a little. That is to say--not entirely. But I
know that he did go back to
his planet, because I did not find his body at daybreak. It was not such
a heavy body . . . and at
night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little
bells . . .
But there is one extraordinary thing . . . when I drew the muzzle for
the little prince, I forgot to add
the leather strap to it. He will never have been able to fasten it on his
sheep. So now I keep
wondering: what is happening on his planet? Perhaps the sheep has
eaten the flower . . .
At one time I say to myself: "Surely not! The little prince shuts his
flower under her glass globe
every night, and he watches over his sheep very carefully . . ." Then I
am happy. And there is
sweetness in the laughter of all the stars.
But at another time I say to myself: "At some moment or other one is
absent-minded, and that is
enough! On some one evening he forgot the glass globe, or the sheep
got out, without making
any noise, in the night . . ." And then the little bells are changed to
tears . . .
Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince,
and for me, nothing in the
universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep
that we never saw
has--yes or no?--eaten a rose . . .
Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten
the flower? And you will
see how everything changes . . .
And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much
importance!

Blood is thicker than water.

It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face