Barbara

“If you imagine, friend, that I do not have those
black serpents in the pit of my body,
that I am not crushed in fragments by the tough
butterfly wing
broken and crumpled like a black silk stocking,
if you imagine that my body is not
blackened
burned wood,
then you imagine a false woman.”
― Diane Wakoski

“It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“When I am dead, even then,
I will still love you, I will wait in these poems,
When I am dead, even then
I am still listening to you.”
― Muriel Rukeyser

“When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
― William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience