the history of love

“Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?”

I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full.

“Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”
—Rochester to Jane

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much
— "Steps"

"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."
— Prince to rose

"Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
"You become responsible forever for what you've tamed."
— Fox to Prince

I’ve never been much of a romantic. Facts and figures have always made more sense to me than flowers and fantasies. I love fairy tales not because I have ever believed they could be true, but because the ridiculousness of the themes they promote have always seemed to prove to me I am right in doubting them. A princess locked in a glass tower, waiting for a prince? Glass breaks. What sort of princess waits for a prince to save her, anyway? A stupid, unresourceful one. [...]

A romantic nature had escaped me, but that didn’t mean I was immune to the appeal of it. Just because I couldn’t convince myself of its reality didn’t mean I didn’t want to believe in romance.

If there is a question about why him, why Dan, why did I want this man after so long without wanting any, I have no answer for it. Some people believe in fate or karma. Some believe in lust at first sight and others have faith there is one person in the universe for each of us, one true love we recognize immediately upon meeting.

I believe in numbers and logic, in calculations that can be proven, in results based on fact, not fate. I believe space abhors a vacuum and that we are all empty, just waiting to be filled.

I believe Dan and I were drawn together like stars whose gravity brings them closer and closer until they merge to create a sun. I believe I was empty and waiting to be filled, and Dan was there to do it. And I believe it could have been someone else, that we are not bound for one person in the universe, that another time or another man might have found the way to fill me. I believe that, but I am glad it was Dan who did. Dan had opened my eyes, but only because they were ready to open.
— Elle

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
— "somewhere i have never travelled"