over the rainbow.

There's a bluebird in my heart that Wants to get out but I'm too tough for him I say, stay in there, I'm not going To let anybody see you There's a bluebird in my heart that Wants to get out But I pour whiskey on him and inhale Cigarette smoke And the whores and the bartenders And the grocery clerks never know that He's in there There's a bluebird in my heart that Wants to get out but I'm too tough for him I say, Stay down, do you want to mess Me up? You want to screw up the Works? You want to blow my book sales in Europe? There's a bluebird in my heart that Wants to get out But I'm too clever, I only let him out At night sometimes when everybody's asleep I say, I know that you're there So don't be sad Then I put him back But he's singing a little In there, I haven't quite let him die And we sleep together like that With our secret pact And it's nice enough to make a man Weep, but I don't weep, do You? — Charles Bukowski

“Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.” — March 28, 1941 | Virginia Woolf's last letter to her husband, Leonard.

از دوران کودکی مانند آنچه دیگران بودند، نبودم. مانند آنچه دیگران می‌دیدند، ندیدم. نمی‌توانستم شور و شوقم را از یک چشمه بگیرم. غم خود را از یک منشاء نگرفته‌ام نمی‌توانم قلبم را بیدار کنم که از نوای یکسانی لذت ببرد و هرچه عشق ورزیدم، به تنهایی بود. سپس، در کودکیم، در سپیده دم یک زندگی پرتلاطم از عمق هرچه خیر و شر است ، معمایی سربرآورد که مرا بی حرکت نگاه می‌دارد. از سیل یا از چشمه از صخره‌ی سرخ رنگ کوه از خورشیدی غلتان ، که با رنگ زرد و طلاییش به دور من می‌چرخد. از برق آسمان ، هنگامی که از کنارم پرواز می‌کند. از رعد و طوفان و از ابری که در نظرم هنگامی که بقیه‌ی آسمان آبی رنگ است به شکل دیو درآمده است. متن اصلیِ شعر:

From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still— From the torrent, or the fountain— From the red cliff of the mountain— From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by— From the thunder, and the storm— And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view—

— Alone, by Edgar Allan Poe

I don’t want to sell my stories anymore, stop pushing me I want to leave them underneath the nightstand to be forgotten or remembered should my thoughts come upon them in the middle of the night after a long beach day Or by you, some afternoon, to thumb through with your worn warm after-work hands I love you, but you don’t understand me, I’m a real poet, My life is my poetry.

Get out of my blood, salamander! I can’t seem to blow off enough steam to get you out of my head Soul cycle you to death, run you out of my blood to San Pedro And yet, everywhere I go, it seems there you are, And there I am.

I don’t want to sell my stories anymore, stop pushing me I want to leave them underneath the nightstand to be forgotten or remembered should my thoughts come upon them in the middle of the night after a long beach day Or by you, some afternoon, to thumb through with your worn warm after-work hands I love you, but you don’t understand me, I’m a real poet! My life is my poetry.