Ssentongo Dickson

“She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover me.
Paris white or flake white
or argentine, all in the washbasin
of my mouth, calling “Oh.”
I am empty. I am witless.
Death is here. There is no
other settlement.”
― Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

“Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

“The summer has seized you,
as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw
lemons as large as your desk-side globe-
that miniature map of the world-
and I could mention, too,
the market stalls of mushrooms
and garlic bugs all engorged.
Or I even think of the orchard next door,
where the berries are done
and the apples are beginning to swell.
And once, with our first backyard,
I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans
we couldn’t eat.”
― Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

“I must always forget how one word is able to pick out another, to manner another, until I have got something I might have said... but did not.”
― Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems