Tag: love

Love, by Ruby Robinson

Eventually, the nerve impulse is carried
to the apex of the heart
causing ventricles to contract,
and blood to rush
to and from this muscle the size
of your fist, an engine of flesh,

the marksman’s target for a bullet.
You said, listen to your heart
placed a stethoscope
to my jumping skin, paused.

Cleopatra compared
it to the stroke of death,
this harbouring in the heart
of an uncertain beat.

How can one find out if one is in love?

“One day I asked a passionate and healthy young woman: ‘How can one find out if one is in love? It is also possible to want to take your mother in your arms and kiss her, isn’t it?’ She explained: ‘When you kiss your lover, you want him to die of your kisses and you want to disappear into him (she used another very characteristic word) etc.,’ – there is an infinity of expressions. The most elevated instincts always present themselves as murderous instincts. To begin with there is the little brother who calls the kitten: ‘Puss! Puss! My little darling! I love you! I am going to torture you and make you die!’; besides there is the well-known fact that lovers love to tease and torment each other, and moreover there is martyrdom and crimes of passion. Everywhere you see the pleasure involved in destroying and dying.” (Sabina Spielrein, 2001, p. 160)

Spielrein, S. (2001). Unedited extracts from a diary (1906/1907?). Journal of Analytical Psychology, 46, 155–171.

Black Bag (2025)

Clarissa: You are one naughty husband, George.

George: You asked how it works. To be with someone in this business. This is how. You each know what you know, and you know what you’ll do, and you never discuss certain things again. I watch her. I assume she watches me. If she’s in trouble, even of her own making, I will do everything in my power to extricate her. No matter what that means. You understand?

Clarissa: My God, that’s so hot.

George: That’s how it works. It’s the only way.

“I feel sure that I shall meet Morcom again”

Thurs 13 Feb 1930, Alan Turing’s first (and unrequited) love Christopher Morcom died. Turing was 17. “I feel sure that I shall meet Morcom again somewhere and that there will be some work for us to do together…” (Hodges, 1983/2014, pp. 61-62):

Dear Mother,

I wrote to Mrs Morcom as you suggested and it has given me a certain relief. […] I feel sure that I shall meet Morcom again and that there will be work for us to do together, and as I believed there was for us to do here. Now that I am left to do it alone I must not let him down but put as much energy into it, if not as much interest, as if he were still here. If I succeed I shall be more fit to enjoy his company than I am now. I remember what G O’H said to me once ‘Be not weary of well doing for in due ye shall reap if ye faint not’ and Bennett who is very kind on these occasions ‘Heaviness may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning’. Rather Plymouth brotherish perhaps. I am sorry he is leaving. It never seems to have occurred to me to try and make any other friends besides Morcom, he made everyone seem so ordinary […].

References

Andrew Hodges (1983/2014). Alan Turing: the Enigma. Princeton University Press.

I like the way you know / That I like how you look

Hannah Diamond (2014) [Every Night]:

I know you like the way that I look
And it looks like I like you too
You know I do

I like the way you know
That I like how you look
And you like me too
I know you do

I see you look at me
And I know that you think
You like what you see
I want you too

Thomas Nagel (1969, pp. 10-11) [Sexual Perversion. The Journal of Philosophy, 66, 5-17]:

At some point Romeo notices Juliet. He is moved, somehow, by the softness of her hair and the diffidence with which she sips her martini, and this arouses him sexually. […] Juliet now senses Romeo in another mirror on the opposite wall, though neither of them yet knows that he is seen by the other […]. But now, cleverly calculating the line of her stare without actually looking her in the eyes, he realizes that it is directed at him through the mirror on the opposite wall. That is, he notices, and moreover senses, Juliet sensing him. […] But there is a further step. Let us suppose that Juliet […] now senses that he senses her. This puts Romeo in a position to notice, and be aroused by, her arousal at being sensed by him. He senses that she senses that he senses her. This is still another level of arousal, for he becomes conscious of his sexuality through his awareness of its effect on her and of her awareness that this effect is due to him.

A story about 3am

(If you’re looking for the 3am poems they’re over there.) Here’s Tracey Emin (2006, Feb 10), My Life in a Column.

And there, a row of gas-workers’ cottages, surrounded by nothing but wasteland. He stood outside one of the houses, and as she cycled up with a smile on her face, he said: “You’re not coming in. I didn’t ask you to follow me.” She looked down sadly and replied: “So I’m supposed to cycle all the way back then?” “OK,” he said, but with absolutely no humour, “you can stay the night. But whatever happens, you are not going to be my girlfriend.” As she closed the door behind her, she smiled, and said: “Sure. But I bet you anything, before the night is out, you will say I’m your girlfriend.”

Read on…

Assertiveness role play, by Lorraine Mariner

I am your work colleague, neighbour and friend.
I have a dog. I’m always going away for the weekend
and expect you to look after my dog which means
you can’t go anywhere. You’ve had enough.
I say Hi Michael. How are you? You say Fine.
I say I’m off to Rome. You say That’s nice.
I say I’ll drop Rover round on Friday. You say No
and use your broken record; Lorraine, I’m sorry,
I’m not going to look after your dog any more
I want to be free at the weekend. I’m supposed to
keep asking and you’re supposed to keep saying
I’m not going to look after your dog again
but instead you touch my leg and say Ok
bring round your dog. How can I refuse you?
The trainer is not impressed. She doesn’t think
you’re taking this course seriously. Other pairs
are still in role so we have time to kill and I ask you
if you like dogs and you tell me you don’t because Of
a stupid Afghan Hound you had as a child, while
the part of me deep inside that knows what it wants
says Forget my dog. He’s a figment of the trainer’s
imagination – you are not. I noticed when we had
to share one thing we like to do, with the group
at the start of the course, yours was going to an
Italian class. Well. I’m learning the language too
only I didn’t like to say m case you thought I was
making it up but… vieni a Roma con me.
This will be my broken record; Come with me to Rome.
I’ve never been and the ice cream I’m planning to eat
on the Spanish Steps is too big for one. To show
that we mean business the trainer says we need a limit,
something that we will do if our needs don’t seem
to be getting met. Not an empty threat. What you say
you have to see through. Michael, come with me to Italy
or my dog will bite you. Or I will. My bottom line.