A Burst of Light

by Audre Lorde

Feelings are not wrong, but you are accountable for the behavior you use to satisfy those feelings.

want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes—everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!

As a living creature I am part of two kinds of forces—growth and decay, sprouting and withering, living and dying, and at any given moment of our lives, each one of us is actively located somewhere along a continuum between these two forces.

Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone; who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.

I want to acknowledge all those intricate connections between us by which we sustain and empower each other.

Most of all I think of how important it is for us to share with each other the powers buried within the breaking of silence about our bodies and our health, even though we have been schooled to be secret and stoical about pain and disease. But that stoicism and silence does not serve us nor our communities, only the forces of things as they are.

Each one of us must define for ourselves what substance and shape we wish to give the life we have left.

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.