You Don't Have to Be Everything Quotes

“my greed for love, for my own perfection, reeks of desperation, but it is me and i am holy in my unholiness, so wonderfully messy, that i can’t help but begin to win myself over.”
― Diana Whitney, You Don't Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves

“Night Bloom Crystal Williams —For Jade, after Hayden It makes no sense to say things will get better because you will not understand until they are better & they may not get better soon. There is always pain in the world & you have seen so much of it. I do not know how to explain other than to say, I am so sorry your mother has died, Girl, that her mother has turned her back, that your father is a rogue & you are having to do this grown-up work alone. I would like to tell you to be patient but understand that right now you might only know fear. Listen, then. & know this: it is okay to be fearful. If you cannot believe that things will soften, trust that I believe for you. You will not remember all of this pain. But when Darkness insists you attend his party you will know the trapdoors & gloomy corners of that house. & you alone will be able to find the garden where beautiful Cereus is opening her eyes in the pitch black.”
― Diana Whitney, You Don't Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves

“What Do Women Want?” Kim Addonizio I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what’s underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store with all those keys glittering in the window, past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly, hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders. I want to walk like I’m the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me, to show you how little I care about you or anything except what I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment from its hanger like I’m choosing a body to carry me into this world, through the birth-cries and the love-cries too, and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin, it’ll be the goddamned dress they bury me in.”
― Diana Whitney, You Don't Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves

“i am alive, and by god i’m tired of being awakened, but unlived. tomorrow, today, now i step outside.”
― Diana Whitney, You Don't Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves