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— Adonis, “Elegies (for my Father)”

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— Anne Sexton, “Small Wire” (from The Awful Rowing Toward God)

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— Anne Sexton, “The Civil War” (from The Awful Rowing Toward God)

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— Anne Sexton, Words for Dr. Y

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— Anne Sexton, “The Breast” (from Love Poems)

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— Anne Sexton, “Wanting to Die” (from Live or Die)

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— Anne Sexton, “Love Song” (from Live or Die)

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— Anne Sexton, “Flee on Your Donkey” (from Live or Die)

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— Anne Sexton, “The Sun” (from Live or Die)

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But if I dream of loving, then my dreams are of snarling strangers.

— Anne Sexton, “Old Dwarf Heart” (from All My Pretty Ones)

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Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame, I heard them say, was mine.

— Anne Sexton, “The Double Image” (from To Bedlam and Part Way Back)

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— Anne Sexton, “You, Doctor Martin” (from To Bedlam and Part Way Back)

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— Anne Sexton, “The Fortress”

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“Please, let him be soft. I know you made him with gunmetal bones and wolf’s teeth. I know you made him to be a warrior a soldier a hero. But even gunmetal can warp and even wolf’s teeth can dull and I do not want to see him break the way old and worn and overused things do. I do not want to see him go up in flames the way all heroes end up martyrs. I know that you will tell me that the world needs him. The world needs his heart and his faith and his courage and his strength and his bones and his teeth and his blood and his voice and his– The world needs anything he will give them. Damn the world, and damn you too. Damn anyone that ever asked anything of him, damn anyone that ever took anything from him, damn anyone that ever prayed to his name. You know that he will give them everything until there is nothing left of him but the imprint of dust where his feet once trod. You know that he will bear the world like Atlas until his shoulders collapse and his knees buckle and he is crushed by all he used to carry. Dear God, you have already made an Atlas. You have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules. You have already made so many heroes, and you can make another again. You can have your pick of heroes. So please, I beg you– he is all that I have, and you have so many heroes and the world has so many more. Let him be soft, and let him be mine.”

— Please, let him be happy ( j.p. )

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When I die, I will come in fast and low. I will stick the landing. There will be no confusion. The dead will make room for me.

— Richard Siken, “Real Estate”

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— Anne Carson, Short Talks

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Forgive me. I cannot find the poem in all of this, but I can’t bear to let it go unspoken. I want to make this violence a stranger in my mouth. I want to make it something worth remembering.

— torrin a. greathouse, “Litany of Ordinary Violences” (from Wound from the Mouth of a Wound)