Armed I am with love. Disarmed I am.

-Para onde é que vai o Kurika quando morrer, perguntou-me certo dia a minha filha, depois de um dos ataques do cão.

-Para onde vamos todos nós.

-Mas para onde?

-Talvez o Kurika saiba. Eu não

A poet is someone who never forgets they were born naked.

We arrived and the miracle happened.
It was the sea and the wind in the bells.
We came from far, from years
Thirsty as dust, from humble
fishermen’s nets on barren shore."
~ José Manuel Cardona, from Poems to Circe, The Birnam Wood (El Bosque de Birnam, Consell Insular D'Eivissa, 2007).
Translated from the Spanish by Helene Cardona.

The weight of his words settled in the pit of my stomach. Old fears and worries stirred in the depths of my thoughts. How I wanted to believe him, to trust him, to love him. But the flip side of the wild desire to give him everything was the chilling knowledge of what usually happened when I followed my heart, or my body — both of which wanted to surrender to Julian utterly.

And maybe that was love. Being so vulnerable and allowing someone else in so far they could hurt you, but they also give you everything.