It feels as though I make my way
through massive rock
like a vein of ore
alone, encased.


I am so deep inside it
I can't see the path or any distance:
everything is close
and everything closing in on me
has turned to stone.


Since I still don't know enough about pain,
this terrible darkness makes me small.
If it's you, though –


press down hard on me, break in
that I may know the weight of your hand,
and you, the fullness of my cry.


– Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God (trans. Anita Barrows and JoAnna Macy)