DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT,
OLD AGE SHOULD BURN AND RAVE AT CLOSE OF DAY;
RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.

THOUGH WISE MEN AT THEIR END KNOW DARK IS RIGHT,
BECAUSE THEIR WORDS HAD FORKED NO LIGHTNING THEY
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.

GOOD MEN, THE LAST WAVE BY, CRYING HOW BRIGHT
THEIR FRAIL DEEDS MIGHT HAVE DANCED IN A GREEN BAY,
RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.

WILD MEN WHO CAUGHT AND SANG THE SUN IN FLIGHT,
AND LEARN, TOO LATE, THEY GRIEVED IT ON ITS WAY,
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.

GRAVE MEN, NEAR DEATH, WHO SEE WITH BLINDING SIGHT
BLIND EYES COULD BLAZE LIKE METEORS AND BE GAY,
RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.

AND YOU, MY FATHER, THERE ON THE SAD HEIGHT,
CURSE, BLESS, ME NOW WITH YOUR FIERCE TEARS, I PRAY.
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.
RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.

Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave."
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“At Oreanda they sat on a beach not far from the church, looked down at the sea, and were silent. Yalta was barely visible through the morning mist; white clouds rested motionlessly on the mountaintops. The leaves did not stir on the trees, cicadas twanged, and the monotonous muffled sound of the sea that rose from below spoke of the peace, the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it rumbled below when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it rumbles now, and it will rumble as indifferently and as hollowly when we are no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing advance of life upon earth, of unceasing movement towards perfection.”

Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Little Dog

i

Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade.
 Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn.
Say autumn despite the green
 in your eyes. Beauty despite
daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn
 mounting in your throat.
My thrashing beneath you
 like a sparrow stunned
with falling.

Ocean Vuong, On earth we're briefly gorgeous

There are many theories as to how we came to be
I’m not sure which one I believe.

Did we appear as dually flickering lights above the hazy skyline—
fluttering,
distant,
choking on a stifling fog
First, solitary decades of life as a lukewarm utterance
whispering, “Oh what is this emptiness?”
Hybrid gesturing suggesting half isn’t missing, but whole.

But someday,
when beacons collide, not coincidence but prophecy,
wrenching claims of meant to be
The sparks erupt,
in ultraviolet chaos—volcanic, raging,
a mighty wallop of color and sound,
a shattering cry of belonging splitting time itself.

I don’t think so.

I don’t think I was born to love anyone except myself,
but even that, some days, I’m not sure is true.
I don’t think our initials are carved into anything immortal.
Let alone battered into the very cosmos
The air didn’t—lock into place upon out arrival,
awaiting the moment our silhouettes would one day fill the empty space

I could fall in love with a melody—
let it crawl to my body,
or train ride, or alabaster sheet; there are chemicals that do these things to me
I could grow fond of many things,
but,
how particular my fondness of you
How fervent
How violent, how gentle.

I think we’re just moths,
riding on the backs of giants
And I wasn’t drawn to you because our wings are both blue,
but, because they’re the same color as everyone else’s
And you were willing to listen
to why that scared me.

We’re not star-crossed,
but we can still wrap ourselves in the seams of a quilted universe that we didn’t stitch.
Bathe in the glow of the sun that doesn’t shine for us.
Run atop an earth that doesn’t feel our hurried foot steps
as they thump, thump, thump.

How lucky we are to have nothing expected to us.
Quickly,
all the time we’ll ever know is tapping her toes on the doorstep

And I don’t want to keep her waiting.

Savannah Brown, Loving like an Existentialist