I wanted to do everything once and for all and be through with it.

People or stars Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

It was my last act of love (first words to her mother in the hospital after her first major suicide attempt)

That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses. "Save them for my funeral," I'd said.

The sky leans on me, me, the one upright among all horizontals.

Some pale, hueless flicker of sensitivity is in me. God, must I lose it in cooking scrambled eggs for a man.

What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam.