Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

-Pablo Neruda

The Man in the Arena

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Love at first sight...

Love at first sight. Controvertible indeed is its existence. I, for one, am a firm believer in it. Why? Because as of right now, I am but a helpless victim of it. The word 'Love' may often impress an overstated importance, especially suspect in my case. But I believe words such as, 'infatuation', 'lust', or 'attraction' are too feeble in meaning to describe how I feel. Whatever it is I'm feeling, I am feeling it so immensely my cognitive faculty is handicapped. Logical becomes illogical. The boundaries between sky and ground blur. I cannot think straight.

I thought, following each rejection and fumble-up, that I would finally get over this mushy nonsensical feeling I am experiencing. Oh god how wrong was I. Even as I am writing this now, nothing has changed. I am still crazy about you, as I was the night I met you. I am not gonna deny, the first time I met you I was checking you out(lol) but as I began talking to you, I just realised how amazing you are. Perhaps you do not remember a single word you said to me--probably because I was not an engaging a conversationalist as I ought to have been-- but I remember almost all of it. How any of that made me think you are beautiful, I do not know. I want to know. I truly do. But alas, it just wasn't meant to be. I fumbled up one too many times. Forget fucking up my first impression. I fucked up the first ten impressions.