For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive, and it is within that knowledge that our real power is rediscovered. It is this real connection, which is so feared by a patriarchal world.

I am not just a lesbian. I am not just a poet. I am not just a mother. Honor the complexity of your vision and yourselves.

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live unblinded? How much of this pain can I use?

I cannot shut you out the way I shut the others out, so maybe I can destroy you. Must destroy you?

Every woman I have ever known has made a lasting impression on my soul.

But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.