#Anne Sexton

[mournfulroses]

Anne Sexton, from a letter featured in Anne Sexton; A Self-Portrait In Letters

[awemazed]

I was tired of being a woman,

tired of the spoons and the post,

tired of my mouth and my breasts,

tired of the cosmetics and the silks.

There were still men who sat at my table,

circled around the bowl I offered up.

The bowl was filled with purple grapes

and the flies hovered in for the scent

and even my father came with his white bone.

But I was tired of the gender things.

Last night I had a dream

and I said to it…

"You are the answer.

You will outlive my husband and my father."

In that dream there was a city made of chains

where Joan was put to death in man's clothes

and the nature of the angels went unexplained,

no two made in the same species,

one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand,

one chewing a star and recording its orbit,

each one like a poem obeying itself,

performing God's functions,

a people apart.

"You are the answer,"

I said, and entered,

lying down on the gates of the city.

Then the chains were fastened around me

and I lost my common gender and my final aspect.

Adam was on the left of me

and Eve was on the right of me,

both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason.

We wove our arms together

and rode under the sun.

I was not a woman anymore,

not one thing or the other.

O daughters of Jerusalem,

the king has brought me into his chamber.

I am black and I am beautiful.

I've been opened and undressed.

I have no arms or legs.

I'm all one skin like a fish.

I'm no more a woman

than Christ was a man.

~ Anne Sexton, Consorting With Angels

The Wellspring, Brendon Burton

[shisasan]

February 21, 1974 Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (to her daughter, Joyce Sexton) First published: 1977

[lovelettersandjournals]

— james joyce.

[metamorphesque]

musings on the sun

christina perneta, noor hindi, vincent van gogh, jeanette winterson, zinaida vysota docenko, anne sexton, olga kos, khalil gibran

[petaltexturedskies]

During the rainstorms of April the oyster rises from the sea and opens its shell—rain enters it—when it sinks the raindrops become the pearl. So take a picnic, open your body, and give birth to pearls.

Anne Sexton, from "The Sermon of the Twelve Acknowledgements" in The Complete Poems

[moonlitfairytale]

Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait in Letters

[perfectquote]

I'm in pain because the day is ending and somehow l am never healing.

Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait In Letters

[deviika]

Fernando Pessoa // Anne Sexton

[apocryphics]

anne sexton

[mournfulroses]

Anne Sexton, from a letter featured in Anne Sexton; A Self-Portrait In Letters

[indigoluvers]

↪ Anne Sexton / James Patterson, The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, #1) / Moral of the Story by Ashe / Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers/ Ranata Suzuki / The New Thing Dies by Ray Bull

↪ dm for credit or removal of images

[shisasan]

March 28, 1965 Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems

[lovelettersandjournals]

via pintrest.

[metamorphesque]

— Anne Sexton, Imitations of Drowning

[petaltexturedskies]

Anne Sexton, from “The Sermon of the Twelve Acknowledgements” in The Complete Poems