Glam Glee Glitter

You start dying slowly

You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem
When you do not let others help you.

You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice.

- Martha Medeiros

I hear some rustle of things

I hear some rustle of things behind my sadness of heart, I cannot see them.

- Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds (1919)

And are you in love?

And are you in love? And are you happy? And do you sometimes write a poem? And have you had your hair cut? And have you met anybody of such beauty your eyes dance, as the waves danced.

- Virginia Woolf, Letter to Quentin Bell written c. February 1930

Those who are best at poetry are those

Those who are best at poetry are those who have to write it and will continue to write it no matter the result. The act of writing the word down is the act of miracle, the saving grace, the luck, the music, the going-on. It clears the space, it saves you and some other people. If fame somehow comes through all this, you must ignore it, you must continue to write as if the next line were your first line.

And although we must ignore praise, there are times when we might allow ourselves to feel good for just a bit. I received a letter from a prisoner in a jail in Australia who wrote me, 'Your books are the only books that pass from cell to cell.'

- Charles Bukowski

How little words are necessary between us

How little words are necessary between us. We seem to know each other though we say nothing almost for days. The energy which is required for carrying on conversations seems to have left me lately and I find myself constantly slipping into silence. In a way it seems to me a pity that we do not say more to each other. You see how I begin to babble in these letters. And yet why should I be ashamed of words?, Why should I not call you what in my heart I continually call you?.

- James Joyce, Letter to Nora Barnacle, 26 Sept, 1904

When I am unhappy

When I am unhappy, dear Mary, I read your letters. When the mist overwhelms the I in me, I take two or three letters out of the little box and reread them. They remind me of my true self. They make me overlook all that is not high and beautiful in life. Each and every one of us, dear Mary, must have a resting place somewhere. The resting place of my soul is a beautiful grove where my knowledge of you lives.

- Kahlil Gibran