I can never know the dimensions

After ending it, I'm less sad about my loneliness than about his,
       which I can never know the dimensions of.

Someone I meet in a bar tells me that one of my poems, a poem
       about the apocalypse, is a good love poem. It cures me of the
       need to write love poems.

The soap opera teen says: There is no such thing as love. There is
       only misunderstanding and cruelty.

The soap opera mother says: Just don't wait too long.

Most people would rather convince themselves of being in love
       than of being happy, just as most people would rather believe
       they are talking to others when talking to themselves.

I have never been what people call an outdoorsman--I have been
       hiking in the mountains exactly twice--but what bothers me
       is the near certainty that I will not die out of doors.

After hearing her deliberations for weeks, I advise my friend to
       sleep with the German, since all the universe will be the same
       before as it is after she sleeps with him--except, of course, for
       the fact that she will have slept with the German.

Whatever the lover gives to you just before parting, when you
       first meet, when you end it, will be significant, since anything
       may be used as a metaphor for anything else.

Where beauty is, there you see yourself.

As I age, I find fewer things beautiful. The number of possibilities
       for my ultimate self decreases as time passes. It is possible
       that, the moment before my death, I will find exactly one
       thing beautiful.

When I am dead I won't remember what it was that ruined me,
       or how death once seemed no worse than ruin.

[Sarah Manguso {1974- } 'A Final Love Poem' from Siste Viator]