The Ring

The Ring, Marilyn Hacker

Her ring is in a safe-deposit box
with hundred-dollar bills and wills and deeds.
You used to hide my letters with the stock
certificates, unlock a room to read
those night thoughts in a vault under the bank
where we descend this noon: a painless loan
of cash from you to me, for which I thank
you, but tremble. Half as a joke, we sign
a promissory note on a looseleaf
page: odd, to see your name written with mine.
You fold that, file it in a plastic sleeve,
then rummage in the artefacts to find
and show me what you’ve just inherited:
your mother’s knuckle-duster diamond ring,
a fossil prism in a satin bed.
You model it. I see your hand shaking.
You ask me if I want to try it on
but I won’t put that diamond on my hand.
Once, I gave you a ring. You loaned me one.
What I borrowed that day has been returned.

via, Jeanette Winterson

Great and Ruinous Lovers

"Lancelot and Guinevere.
Tristan and Isolde.
Siegfried and Brunnhilde.
Romeo and Juliet.
Cathy and Heathcliffe.
Vita and Violet.
Oscar and Bosie.
Burton and Taylor.
Abelard and Heloise.
Paolo and Francesca.

There are many more. This is a list you can write yourself. Some are greater than others. Some more ruinous. Some tales have been told many times, others privately and by letter. Love's script has no end of beginnings. The characters and the scenerary change.

There are three possible endings: Revenge. Tragedy. Forgiveness."

Jeanette Winterson - The PowerBook

In each day we are presented a choice. I choose forgiveness. I will not lose my life to tragedy, nor will I sell my soul to revenge.

We are so often obsessed with where a relationship is going that we forget to enjoy the present. The gift of now. The ache reminds us that we do care. And we do. You can never own another. You can only share.