Before I fall asleep, it occurs to me that life consists of days like this. Points that in the end, if we have been fortunate, connect a line. That they can also fall apart into a meaningless pile of spent time, that only a continuous unswerving effort gives a meaning to the small units of time in which we live.

Christa Wolf, One Day a Year

It's terrible to want something and not to have it. Ah, but then to know that it's within your grasp.
-The Tale of the Body Thief, Anne Rice

We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions – love, antipathy, charity or malice – and what is predetermined by the constant powerplay among individuals.

- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

I'm tagging: MARU and BEA and LISA and BEBE

Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Journey's End"

Last Night Walking Away
-Vincenz C. Serrano

No pain.
Not even trying to feel. Just this dark sky without a sound.
Just these gray cirrus clouds,
like ash.

Walking away I think
of the flowers you had given me,
fallen flowers you would pick from the sidewalk
and wear on your hair: such flametree delight,
such buttercup joy. Now the flowers
are in a wooden box. The last time
I opened the lid, the petals were brown
and scentless but I could not throw them away.

Now I can think
of everything: seashells, sunset love,
how your hands held me,
how your mouth took me in so deep. A slate blue
sea. Books. Falling stars.

But nothing falls tonight,
nothing is thrown away; the July leaves
are asleep and the saddest stars are in place.
The clouds do not breathe. The sky refuses
to sing. Even the dust is calm,
does not suffer.

Strange. I can't feel
a thing. I've hidden myself
in my words. Can build a strong fortress,
really, these things. Wordbrick upon wordbrick -
yes no ask me tomorrow and maybe I'll love you
and I know how safe I am. Images, what mortar.
Walls, how high. Flowers can't enter. Seashells
are shut out. Kisses can't get in.
I can't get you in.

My drunken delight with the moon. I've lost you in the safest syn-
tax somewhere, in that Gehenna between me and the moon.
I've shut everything out with
so many words. So safe.

Nothing moves. Not even
a whirligig pain. Nothing moves. Not even the memory
of your tears. Your cry frozen on your face,
like in those victims of violent deaths. 3

Sorry. I must
destroy my fortress of words and finally learn
how to speak. Hate be the battered ram.
Maddest skies be th armies to raid me.
Footsteps bring me no pain. Now the night
comes and I am a bruise passing through -
not a slash, not a welt -
blue-gray and bitter.

Not even lightning. Someday
when this is all over and I am in pain,
I can love you again.
Someday, when I'm feeling better, I'll return.

But tonight, falling out of your love
and walking under the trees,
I am mostly silence,
mostly real and empty,
mostly like the moon.

How I wish you could wound me.

I got hold of Girl With the Pearl Earring in Book Sale. Initially, I wasn’t so keen in purchasing the book but when I saw how much it was worth in Powerbooks (Php 700.00!), I went back to Book Sale and got a good bargain. 

There was also a ninety-nine peso Memoirs of a Geisha with its first edition cover but it had black markings on the sides. Too bad. 

Sometimes I wonder why some good books end up in a bargain shop, with some still in very good condition. Perhaps their previous owners had to part with their beloved books to earn some money. Maybe, some weren’t so happy about their purchases and thought of selling them instead than giving them away. 

Anyhow, it’s exciting to excavate the mounds of books that are piled up in book sales and to find something that is so much more than what it’s worth.