honey and sting

One of the most beautiful fanfics I've ever read.   Follows Genly Ai after the events of The Left Hand of Darkness.   Spoilers for that novel, but except for a few brief flashbacky references, very nearly stands on its own.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/141970

Does not even make perfect.
Is not the way to Carnegie Hall.
Is an afternoon spent in light
that moves across the keys.
Is an irritant.
Is a balm.
Is a begrudged answer to an unvoiced prayer.
Is the voicing of the prayer:

Let me, blind chasm of belonging-not belonging,
find my way to something sustained.
Awareness that isn't gone like an appetite, sated,
or a thirst, unquenched.

The studied coin of consciousness dissipates, always.
And the unstudied wind blows along, unowned.
Neither hard-struck metal nor the breeze
will hold.

Nor metaphor define.
I want to make it mine:  Knowing,
once, always.
In this, desire
will always be betrayed.
Even longing
is another word for loss.

Yet how can I proceed
except by feeling the way,
shattered and unmarked,
to the promised and unfettered light?

And so.
Here.  Again.
One two.  Breathing.
Practice.
Because it's lost, it, the thing, the 
yes, the now, illumination, clarity, joy.
In the instant of its having, gone.

A faithful rhythm, then,
to know this loss,
forgive it,
and start again.

Begin.