One sip of this wine and you will go mad with drunkenness. You will drop your masks and tear your clothes — destroying everything that separates you from the Lover. Once you taste the fruit of this vine, you will be kicked out of the city of yourself. You will forget the world. You will forget yourself. I tell you: you will become a madman who wanders the streets looking for the Lover once you drink this Wine of Love.

Ignorance might be bliss. But self-forgetfulness is pure ecstasy.

My love, you are driving the entire world mad. The nightingales are committing suicide one by one out of jealousy of your voice. The roses took one glance at your beauty and folded themselves from shame. The trees now only whisper your name and the sky hasn’t stopped crying since you looked up. Have pity on us, my love. We have already broken all the mirrors and glass out of fear that you will forget us and fall in love with yourself once you see what we all cannot stop seeing.

Is it odd, my love, that I envy others who have not met you for the intoxication they have yet to experience? Is it odd that I wish to witness you with new eyes so I may have the pleasure of falling for you all over again? I am grateful, so grateful, for knowing the meaning of your various sighs. For being the cause of your ecstatic cries. But, if only for a moment, I wish to let you fall out of my hands so that I may catch you again. You, my love, are the oddity. You are my exception.

The lover drinksand the cup-bearer pours.The lover thinksbut the cup-bearer knows:love begets love.Since this wine is love,then this cup is love,then this tavern is love,then this life is love.

These five words you utter make the sun rise again: “I’m going to come home.” How is it possible for one person to be the sole reason for my existence? When I hear you say these golden words, the warmth spreads from my stomach until it reaches my pulsating fingertips. How is it possible for one person to be the sole reason for my ecstasy? These five words your utter are even more precious when I’m holding you tight and you whisper only four of them. Because then, I’m really home.

Poetry is jealous of you tonight, for as soon as I come to pen a few words, your perfume attacks me in the most civilised manner and I forget myself. I forget the poem. I forget the ...