“and on the other side for lack of sun there is death perhapswaiting for you in the uproar of a dazzling whirlwind with a thousand explosive armsstretched toward you man flower passing from the seller's hands tothose of the lover and the lovedpassing from the hand of one event to the other passive and sad parakeetthe teeth of doors are chattering and everything is done withimpatience to make you leave quicklyman amiable merchandise eyes open but tightly sealedcough of waterfall rhythm projected in meridians and slicesglobe spotted with mud with leprosy and bloodwinter mounted on its pedestal of night poor night weak and steriledraws the drapery of cloud over the cold menagerieand holds in its hands as if to throw a ballluminous number your head full of poetry”

“And just holding her hand would be good. Can you understand that? Do you know that holding someone's hand can be `the' thing? Such a thing that your hands move while not moving. You can remember a thing like that, rather than any other thing about a night, all your life. Just holding hands can mean more, I believe it. When everything is repeated, and over, and familiar, it's the first things rather than the last that count.”

“Cause I'll be by your side wherever you fallIn the dead of night whenever you callAnd please don't fight these hands that are holding youMy hands are holding you”

“There was the bulge and the glitter, and there was the cold grip way down in the stomach as though somebody had laid hold of something in there, in the dark which is you, with a cold hand in a cold rubber glove. It was like the second when you come home late at night and see the yellow envelope of the telegram sticking out from under your door and you lean and pick it up, but don't open it yet, not for a second. While you stand there in the hall, with the envelope in your hand, you feel there's an eye on you, a great big eye looking straight at you from miles and dark and through walls and houses and through your coat and vest and hide and sees you huddled up way inside, in the dark which is you, inside yourself, like a clammy, sad little fetus you carry around inside yourself. The eye knows what's in the envelope, and it is watching you to see you when you open it and know, too. But the clammy, sad little fetus which is you way down in the dark which is you too lifts up its sad little face and its eyes are blind, and it shivers cold inside you for it doesn't want to know what is in that envelope. It wants to lie in the dark and not know, and be warm in its not-knowing.”

“‎Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.So you mustn’t be frightened, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.”

“Just friends? Alright friend we won’t kiss goodnight, and I won’t hold you tight and wish that you were mine just for one night. I will separate my dreams from my eyes, separate my heart from my spine, keep clean the lines between my hands and your innards.”