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I hated these visits, because I kept feeling the visitors measuring my fat and stringy hair against what I had been and what they wanted me to be, and...more

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I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at m...more

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I am helpless as the sea at the end of her string. I am restless. Restless and useless. I, too, create corpses.

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I’ll never speak to God again.

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How we need that security. How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I n...more

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The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.

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I have stitched life into me like a rare organ

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Life was not to be sitting in hot amorphic leisure in my backyard idly writing or not writing, as the spirit moved me. It was, instead, running madly,...more

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Poppies in JulyLittle poppies, little hell flames,Do you do no harm?You flicker. I cannot touch you.I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.And...more

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I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.

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LADY LAZARUSI have done it again.One year in every tenI manage it--A sort of walking miracle, my skinBright as a Nazi lampshade,My right footA paperwe...more

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They had to call and callAnd pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.--From the poem "Lady Lazarus", written 23-29 October 1962

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I am terrified by this dark thingThat sleeps in me;All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

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I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted To lie with my hands turned upand be utterly empty.How free it is, you have no idea how free - The peacefulne...more

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I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at m...more