Anne Sexton Quotes

Poetry, after all, milks the unconscious.

I don't care, I love you anyhow. It is too late to turn you out of my heart. Part of you lives here.

I am God, la de dah.

You fell, she said, just remember you fell.
I fell, is all he told the doctors
in the big hospital. A nice lady came
and asked him questions but because
he didn't want to be sent away he said, I fell.
He never said anything else although he could talk fine.

The butterfly owns her now.
It covers her and her wounds.

We make a stage set out of my past
and stuff painted puppets into it.
We make a bridge toward my future
and I cry to you: I will be steel!
I will build a steel bridge over my need!
I will build a bomb shelter over my heart!
But my future is a secret.
It is as shy as a mole.

Again And Again And Again

You said the anger would come back

just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not

like. It is a mask I try on.

I migrate toward it and its frog

sits on my lips and defecates.

It is old. It is also a pauper.

I have tried to keep it on a diet.

I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear

like a blood clot. I have

sewn it over my left breast.

I have made a vocation of it.

Lust has taken plant in it

and I have placed you and your

child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous

and the milk tip is brimming

and each machine is working

and I will kiss you when

I cut up one dozen new men

and you will die somewhat,

again and again.

The soul was not cured,
it was as full as a clothes closet
of dresses that did not fit.

Let me hold your heart like a flower lest it bloom and collapse.

I burn the way money burns.

As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.

Somebody sees me, and I see myself through them. Then it’s all gone, the whole world falls apart.

All who love have lied.

He puts his bones back on,
Turning the clock back an hour.
She knows flesh, that skin balloon,
the unbound limbs, the boards,
the roof, the removable roof.
She is his selection, part time.
You know the story too! Look,
when it is over he places her,
like a phone, back on the hook.

I’d won the world
but like a
forsaken explorer,
I’d lost
my map.