Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Why am I reading Neruda at a time like this? Masochism.

Instead I turn to a book of poetry Charli showed me, An Almost Pure Empty Walking by Tryfon Tolides. Never heard of him before. But man.

Two poems right now:

"Praying or Love Poem"

I go to the bookstore, where I don't
want to go, especially, or to be, after I get there,

as if being is burdensome, as if I might find a place
to set it down, instead of carrying it,

so I can rest. Perhaps I mean the body's
weight and entire containment,

the soul straining and fatigued.

The bookstore, in afternoon light, with comforting
jazz, a cafe, people absorbed

in reading and in conversation, is not the place
I want to find. Nor will the next place be

where I go dragging that weight as if I had chosen it
as a solemn and mysterious duty.

and the next, shorter but no less sweet:

Something inside myself keeps me
enslaved, yet saves exactly who I am
I don't want to give you an example--
it's too private, I think, painful--
Let's talk about the weather, how
humid it is these days, or
the war--why we are always at war,
or let's not talk. Is there a quietness
that can make us whole?