Since you walked out on me I'm getting lovelier by the hour. I glow like a corpse in the dark. No one sees how round and sharp my eyes have grown how my carcass looks like a glass urn, how I hold up things in the rags of my hands, the way I can stand through crippled by lust. No, there's just your cruelty circling my head like a bright rotting halo.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep pain and transformation following a heartbreak, highlighting the contrast between outward appearance and inner turmoil.
In this quote by Nina Cassian, the speaker reflects on the emotional and physical changes they experience after a relationship ends. The imagery illustrates a sense of loss and decay, suggesting that while the speaker may appear lovely or well-kept, inside, they feel like a 'corpse' burdened by the cruelty of their past love. The quote powerfully conveys the juxtaposition of beauty and suffering, emphasizing how heartbreak can alter not just feelings but also self-perception.
In practice
This quote resonates well during a poetry reading focused on the themes of love and loss.
A bruise, blue in the muscle, you impinge upon me. As bone hugs the ache home, so I'm vexed to love you, your body the shape of returns, your hair a torso of light, your heat I must have, your opening I'd eat, each moment of that soft-finned fruit, inverted fountain in which I don't see me.
Love is the Cross, and the Cross is Love.
...for, however all other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one bright smiling spot in the maternal breast, and that is where a dearly-beloved child is concerned.
The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
Medicine, you see, is my first love; whether I write fiction or nonfiction, and even when it has nothing to do with medicine, it's still about medicine. After all, what is medicine but life plus? So I write about life.
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