Then take my vows and scatter them to sea;
Who swears the sweetest is no more than human,
And say no kindlier words than these of me:
“Ever she longed for peace, but was a woman;
And thus are they, whose silly female dust
Needs little enough to clutter it and bind it,
Who meet a slanted gaze, and ever must
Go build themselves a soul, to dwell behind it.”
For now I am my own again, my friend!
This scar but points the whiteness of my breast;
This frenzy, like its betters, spins on end—
And now am I my own, and that is best.
Therefore, I am immeasurably grateful
To you, for proving shallow, false, and hateful.
From The Yale Review, Autumn 1930, issue 20.1.
Image: Hilm af Klint Evolution, No. 13, Group VI, 1908