Quotes from Sharon Olds

It is what I do now: not go, not see or touch.

My body may never learn not to yearn for that one

I had not put into words, yet—the worst thing, but I thought that I could say it, if I said it word by word.

If I ever prayed, as a child, for everlasting union, these were its shoes: one dew-licked kicked-off slipper of a being now flying, one sunrise-milk-green boot of the dead, which I wore, as I dreamed.

I can tell you we were right, our bodies were right, life was really going to be that good, that pleasurable in every cell. Suddenly I remember the exact look of your body, but better than that the bright corners of your eyes, or the light of your face, the rich Long Island puppy-fat of your thighs, or the slick chino of your pants bright in the corners of my eyes, I remember your extraordinary act of courage in loving me

and love seemed to rest, on us, in a place where, for that hour, it felt death could not reach, and someone was singing in my hearing, without words, that no one can live without reaching death, but I could have lived without having loved almost without reserve, and for a moment, then, I thought I lived forever with him.

And slowly he starts to seem more far away, he seems to waft, drift at a distance

So much had become so connected to him that it seemed to belong to him, so that now, flying, for hours, above the Atlantic still felt like being over his realm.

It struck cold awe to my heart, now, to look at who I had been who had thought it was impossible that he or I could touch another.

and not to have lost him when he loved me, and not to have lost someone who could have loved me for life.

But if feels as if he's not here— though he's here, it feels as if, for me, there's no one there

If I could choose, a place to die," it would never have been in your arms, old darling, we figured I'd see you out, in mine

That moved me so much about you, the way you were a dumbstruck one and yet you seemed to know everything I did not know

Now I see I've been hoping, each time we meet, that he would praise me for how well I took it, but it's not to be.

I think he loved being loved

I feel like his victim, and he seems my victim

If I pass a mirror, I turn away, I do not want to look at her, and she does not want to be seen.

Sometimes I don't see exactly how to go on doing this.

I guess that's how people go on, without knowing how.

Before I turned out the light, he touched my face, then turned away, then the dark.

And to live in those rooms, where one of his smiles might emerge, like something almost from another place, another time, another set of creatures, was to feel blessed, and to be held in mysteriousness, and a little in mourning.

I am so ashamed before my friends—to be known to be left by the one who supposedly knew me best, each hour is a room of shame, and I am swimming, swimming holding my head up, smiling, joking, ashamed, ashamed, like being naked with the clothed, or being a child, having to try to behave while hating the terms of your life.

but he does not want to talk about it, he wants a stillness at the end of it.

the flesh no one seems now to care to touch.