Hannah Gersh

“I went to look for Love among the roses, the roses,
The pretty winged boy with the arrow and the bow;
In the fair and fragrant places,
'Mid the Muses and the Graces,
At the feet of Aphrodite, with the roses all aglow.

Then I sought among the shrines where the rosy flames were leaping-
the rose and golden flames, never ceasing, never still-
For the boy so fair and slender,
The imperious, the tender,
With the whole world moving slowly to make the music of his will.

Sought, and found not for my seeking, till the sweet quest led me further,
And before me rose the temple, marble-based and gold above,
Where the long procession marches
'Neath the incense-clouded arches
In the world-compelling worship of the mighty God of Love.

Yea, I passed with bated breath to the holiest of holies,
And I lifted the great curtain from the Inmost, - the Most Fair, -
Eager for the joy of finding,
For the glory, beating, blinding,
Meeting but an empty darkness; darkness, silence- nothing there.

Where is Love? I cried in anguish, while the temple reeled and faded;
Where is Love? - for I must find him, I must know and understand!
Died the music and the laughter,
Flames and roses dying after,
And the curtain I was holding fell to ashes in my hand.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, NEW-The Yellow Wall-Paper and Selected Writings

“As an awake man, I need to acknowledge that feminism benefits me. Feminism seeks to dismantle all gender stereotypes. By redefining what it means to be a 'woman,' feminism also redefines what is means to be a 'man.' And to live in a world where men are encouraged to express their full range of emotions, where they are encouraged to be their own unique selves without being anchored down to some narrow, societal definition of 'masculinity'? Count. Me. In.”
― Kelly Jensen, Here We Are

“Isn't it wild the way our puritanical culture represses women's love of their own bodies, their discovery and the joy of their sexual experiences? All the things that my kid should be able to naturally be, she is going to have to defend. She is going to have to become skilled as dismantling the information that comes in, sifting through it the noise and the human collision, and not allowing it to reshape her in the image of the distorted sexist lens of our culture.”
― Kelly Jensen, Here We Are

“Anne watched them as she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were all tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables