I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never 

been loyal.  

I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, 

somehow -- the central heart that deals not

in words, traffics not with dreams, and is

untouched by time, by joy, by adversities. 

I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at 

sunset, years before you were born. 

I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about

yourself, authentic and surprising news of 

yourself. 

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the 

hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you

with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat. 

- from Two English Poems, by Jorge Luis Borges (1934).