I Have Suffered The Atrocity

When They Asked Some Old Roman Philosopher Or Other How He Wanted To Die, He Said He Would Open His Veins In A Warm Bath. I Thought It Would Be Easy, Lying In The Tup And Seeing The Redness Flower From My Wrists, Flush After Flush Through The Clear Water, Till I Sank Into Sleep Under A Surface Gaudy As Poppies.

This Seemed A Dreary And Wasted Life For A Girl With Fifteen Years Of Straight A's, But I Knew That's What Marriage Was Like, Because Cook And Clean And Wash Was Just What Buddy Willard's Mother Did From Morning Till Night, And She Was The Wife Of A University Professor And Had Been A Private School Teacher Herself.

The Future Is What Matters — Because One Never Reaches It, But Always Stays In The Present — Like The White Queen Who Had To Run Like The Wind To Remain In The Same Spot.

My Life Is A Discipline, A Prison: I Live For My Own Work, Without Which I Am Nothing.

I Could Feel The Winter Shaking My Bones And Banging My Teeth Together.