Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
Anne Sextonwas an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Themes of her poetry include her long battle against depression and mania, suicidal tendencies, and various intimate details from her private life, including her relationships with her husband and children...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 November 1928
CityNewton, MA
CountryUnited States of America
I am in my own mind. I am locked in the wrong house.
Talk to me about sadness. I talk about it too much in my own head but I never mind others talking about it either; I occasionally feel like I tremendously need others to talk about it as well.
Not that it was beautiful, but that, in the end, there was a certain sense of order there; something worth learning in that narrow diary of my mind
unless I can shake myself free of my dog, my flag, of my desk, my mind, I find life a bit of a drag. Not always, mind you. Usually I'm like my frying pan useful, graceful, sturdy and with no caper, no plan.
I am alone here in my own mind. There is no map and there is no road. It is one of a kind just as yours is.
What a lay me down this is with two pink, two orange, two green, two white goodnights.
I, in my brand new body, which was not a woman's yet, told the stars my questions and thought God could really see the heat and the painted light, elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
If you meet a cross-eyed person you must plunge into the grass, alongside the chilly ants, fish through the green fingernails and come up with the four-leaf clover....
My objects dream and wear new costumes, compelled to, it seems, by all the words in my hands and the sea that bangs in my throat.
When the cow gives blood and the Christ is born we must all eat sacrifices. We must all eat beautiful women.
Then God spoke to me and said: People say only good things about Christmas. If they want to say something bad, they whisper.
Let God be some tribal female who is known but forbidden.
For I could not read or speak and on the long nights I could not turn the moon off or count the lights of cars across the ceiling.
I want to kiss God on His nose and watch Him sneeze and so do you. Not out of disrespect. Out of pique. Out of a man-to-man thing.