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Thumbs grow into my throat. I wear slaps like a spot of rouge.

Anne Sexton

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Anne Sexton
Age: 45 †
Born: 1928
Born: November 9
Died: 1974
Died: October 4
Poet
Writer
Newton
Massachusetts
Anne Gray Harvey
Like
Slap
Assault
Spot
Throat
Spots
Wear
Slaps
Grow
Rouge
Grows
Thumbs

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think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well: larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings!
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Jesus saw the multitudes were hungry and He said, Oh Lord, send down a short-order cook.
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I'm hunting for the truth. It might be a kind of poetic truth, and not just a factual one, because behind everything that happens to you, there is another truth, a secret life.
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There is hope. There is hope everywhere. Today God give milk and I have the pail.
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we do not explain my husband's insane abuse and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead. Your palms fold over me like knees. Love is the only use.
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I see myself as one would see another. I have been cut in two.
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I burn the way money burns.
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There is an animal inside me, clutching fast to my heart, a huge crab.
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I lay there silently, hoarding my small dignity. I did not ask about the gate or the closet. I did not question the bedtime ritual where, on the cold bathroom tiles, I was spread out daily and examined for flaws. I did not know that my bones, those solids, those pieces of sculpture would not splinter.
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Meanwhile in my head, I’m undergoing open-heart surgery.
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Death, I need my little addiction to you. I need that tiny voice who, even as I rise from the sea, all woman, all there, says kill me, kill me.
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I would like to bury all the hating eyes under the sand somewhere.
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I am so imperfect, can you love me when really my soul is deformed? Will you love me anyhow?
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Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.
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I think of myself as writing for one person, that one perfect reader who understands and loves.
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Loving me with my shoes off means loving my long brown legs, sweet dears, as good as spoons and my feet, those two children let out to play naked.
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All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children.... I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.
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Give me your skin as sheer as a cobweb, let me open it up and listen in and scoop out the dark.
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Why are all these dolls falling out of the sky? Was there a father? Or have the planets cut holes in their nets and let our childhood out, or are we the dolls themselves, born but never fed?
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After a disaster strikes, it can be very devastating and very challenging. You're going to need a lot of strength and energy, and the American Red Cross suggests you go for the high protein items.
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