BECAUSE I LIKED YOU BETTER
Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.
To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
‘Good-bye,’ said you, ‘forget me.’
‘I will, no fear’, said I.
If here, where clover whitens
The dead man’s knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,
Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.
- A. E. Housman A poem that Housman wrote about his college roommate Moses Jackson, who he would pine over his entire life.
"I've fallen madly in love with a woman. And it seems to me so absolutely natural and genuine – there's nothing problematic about it at all. I just feel proud and uncontrollably glad.”
Tove Jansson
"It's a summer day, and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world."
- Frank O'Hara, Homosexuality
Excerpts from Marilyn Monroe's diary indicating that it was likely she was both Asexual & Sapphic
Women wearing men’s suits, 1920s
Emily Dickinson
to Susan Gilbert
I need you more and more, and the great world grows wider… every day you stay away — I miss my biggest heart; my own goes wandering round, and calls for Susie… Susie, forgive me Darling, for every word I say — my heart is full of you… yet when I seek to say to you something not for the world, words fail me… I shall grow more and more impatient until that dear day comes, for til now, I have only mourned for you; now I begin to hope for you.