“I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.”

A pathetic shadow, torn between her envy and thrill of being seen with Masomma, sharing in the attention as a weed would, lapping up water meant for the lily upstream.

Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.

They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.

Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.

What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.

Some stories don’t need telling.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

All good things in life are fragile and easily lost.

I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.

War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.

She said, ‘I’m so afraid.’ And I said, ‘why?,’ and she said, ‘Because I’m so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.’ I asked her why and she said, ‘They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.

A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.

And that, is the story of our country, one invasion after another Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we’re like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.

I finally had what I’d wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, i felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into.

For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.

I dreamed about you baby. It was just the other night. Most of you were naked Ah, but some of you was light.

Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy, useless light behind the terror, deathless song in the house of night.

My reputation as a ladies’ man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.

You can fly away with me tonight.

To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world’s night utters the holy.

Your fragrance is like a fresh morning after a night of storm & rainfall.

How should the new day arrive, if the night is withheld from it and everything is suppressed into the twilight of decisionlessness?

I have seen your darkest nights and brightest days and I want you to know that I will be here forever loving you in dusk.