When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks it’s completely silent. You would think as it’s so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world, or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it’s silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.

If there is a noise, it’s internal. It screams and no-one can hear it but you. It screams so loud that your ears ring and you head aches. It thrashes around in your chest like a great white shark caught in the sea; it roars like a mother bear whose cub has been taken. That’s what it looks like and that’s what it sounds like; a thrashing, panicking great big beast, roaring like a prisoner to its own emotions. Butt hat’s the thing about love – no-one is untouchable. It’s as wild s that, or as raw as an open flesh wound exposed to salty sea water, but when it actually breaks, it’s silent. You’re just screaming on the inside and no-one can hear it.

Cecelia Ahern, Chapter 32, If You Could See Me Now

I have had the world lie beneath my clumsy boots and saw the red sun slip over the horizon after the dark Antarctic winter.

I have been given more than my share of excitement, beauty, laughter and friendship.

But for me the most rewarding moments have not always been the great moments - for what can surpass a tear on your departure, joy on your return, or a trusting hand in yours?

Ed Hillary

Let me tell you what happens when you cook down the syrup of loss over the open fire of sorrow: It solidifies into something else. Not grief, like you would expect, or even regret. No, it gets as thick as paste, black as ash; yet it isn't until you dip your finger in and feel that sharp taste dissolving on your tongue that you realise that this is anger in its purest form, unrefined; a substance to be weighed and measured and spread.

Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts, pg 87

I wrap my hand in plastic to try to look through
it.

from E-Bow the Letter by REM