I take this for myself, and you take up the thread of my life between your teeth, tin thread and tarnished with abuse, you shall still hear as long as the beast in me maintains its taciturn power to close my lids in tears, and my loins move yet in the ennobling pursuit of all the worlds you have left me alone in, and would be the dolorous distraction from, while you summon your army of anguishes which is a million hooting blood vessels on the eyes and in the ears at that instant before death.
Frank O'HaraEach time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there'll be nothing left with which to venture forth. Why should I share you? Why don't you get rid of someone else for a change?
Frank O'HaraMothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to it's true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you grow old as grow old you must they won't hate you
Frank O'HaraBut it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it.
Frank O'HaraI loved her fright, which was against me into the air! and the diamond white of her forelock which seemed to smart with thoughts as my heart smarted with life! and she'd toss her head with the pain and paw the air and champ the bit, as if I were Endymion and she, moon-like, hated to love me.
Frank O'HaraMy Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says "That's not like Frank!," all to the good! I don't wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.
Frank O'Hara