when mary oliver said “i tell you this to break your heart by which i mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world” and when warsan shire said “ya allah if it’ll keep my heart soft, break my heart every day”
also elena ferrante “she was taking on the job of sticking a pin in my heart, not to stop it but to make it beat harder”
and ross gay “in witnessing someone’s being touched, we are also witnessing someone’s being moved, the absence of which in ourselves is a sorrow, and a sacrifice. and witnessing the absence of movement in ourselves by witnessing its abundance in another can hurt. until it becomes, if we are lucky, an opening”
and ellen bass “you may have to break your heart but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive” and jenny slate “i’d rather live with a tender heart, because that is the key to feeling the beat of all of the other hearts” and marie howe “art helps us to let our heart break open, rather than close”
