Anyway, just want women around me to understand, you need to start aspiring towards financial independence with the exact same urgency society wants you to aspire towards marriage.
I'm in love with this. When an interviewer for The Paris Review asked the poet James Wright (1927-1980) about the process of creation, he gave the most beautifully human answer:
“Nothing outside can cure you but everything's outside”
— Bernadette Mayer
.
.
.
This poem appeared in A Bernadette Mayer Reader by Bernadette Mayer, published by New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1992. Shared here with deep gratitude.