A woman is not written in braille, you don’t have to touch her to know her.

“I hope my absence gives you the peace my love never could.”

- Unknown

Hadi Rahnaward: 'Fragile Balance' (2023) rug sculpture created with matches

All suffering originates from craving, from attachment, from desire.

Edgar Allan Poe

Rachel Rector: 'Teabag Cyanotypes' (2021)

I can, and I will.

Sometimes I think back to when we first met, just a few weeks in, maybe a month. We were sitting in my apartment taking, getting to know each other. I started to take my shoes off and out of nowhere you asked “Do you have ugly feet? You always keep your socks on in the house.” I was taken aback, you had zeroed in on a lifetime insecurity like a master archer on their target. I was hesitant to respond & you caught that too, “What’s wrong with your feet”, you asked. Mortified and not wanting to respond I said, “I just hate my second toe. My brother always made fun of me growing up so I’m insecure about it.” Not skipping a beat, and without consideration for my obvious discomfort, empathy for a childhood insecurity, or shame in your lack of boundaries, you said, “take your socks off, I need to see what I’m dealing with here.” I didn’t want to take my socks off. I didn’t want to be having that conversation. But I did and you laughed, saying my feet were totally normal. That you had seen some ugly feet but mine were fine and that my brother was an idiot…

I never forgot that night. How quickly you picked up on my insecurity. How unabashedly you called it out and the lack of regard for how uncomfortable it made me. I didn’t realize then how this ability of yours would present itself throughout our time together; how it would harm or how it would uplift. And to this day, I still don’t know if its something I appreciate or dislike about you but I do know I no longer feel the need to keep my socks on in the house..

“It happens like this.

One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else--closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps this person carries within them an angel--one sent to you for some higher purpose; to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them--even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering--the reason for their presence will become clear in due time.

Though here is a word of warning--you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn't to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled; the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.”

- Lang Leav

Hussein Chalayan

“If we are the same person before and after we love, that means we haven’t loved enough.”

— Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“ This is the end, isn’t it? And you are here with me again, listening with me: the sea no longer torments me; the self I wished to be is the self I am. ”

Louise Glück, from Meadowlands

I swear.. I’m just so done arguing. I will literally never argue with anyone ever again. That’s what you think, feel, believe? -Okay. Cool.