Quotes About Longing

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

Eternity bores me, I never wanted it. From the poem Years, 16 November 1962

If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.

There I went again, building up a glamorous picture of a man who would love me passionately the minute he met me, and all out of a few prosy nothings.

What did my fingers do before they held him? What did my heart do, with its love? From Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices, 1962

At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. --from Daddy, written 12 October 1962

The blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.

I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next day had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.

It is awful to want to go away and to want to go nowhere.

I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love.

I used to pray to recover you. --from Daddy, written 12 October 1962

I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. --from Elm, written 19 April 1962

I wonder about all the roads not taken and am moved to quote Frost...but won't. It is sad to be able only to mouth other poets. I want someone to mouth me.

I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.) --from Mad Girl's Love Song: A Villanelle, written 1954

O love, how did you get here? --from Nick and the Candlestick, written 29 October 1962

Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it --from Elm, written 19 April 1962

I hurl my heart to halt his pace. --from Pursuit, written 1956

I wait and ache.

I am solitary as grass. What is it I miss? Shall I ever find it, whatever it is?

I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. --From the poem Mad Girl's Love Song

When am I going to see you? Do you really want to know? Very much. Never, I said, and hung up with a resolute click.

I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.) I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)

Love is an illusion, but I would willingly fall for it if I could believe in it.