I Was Going To Die, If Not

For Each Of Us As Women, There Is A Dark Place Within, Where Hidden And Growing Our True Spirit Rises, Beautiful And Tough As Chestnut Stanchions Against Our Nightmare Of Weakness. Within These Deep Places, Each One Of Us Holds An Incredible Reserve Of Creativity And Power, Of Unexamined And Unrecorded Emotion And Feeling

I Was Going To Die, If Not Sooner, Then Later, Whether Or Not I Had Ever Spoken Myself. My Silences Had Not Protected Me. Your Silence Will Not Protect You.

We Have Too Often Been Expected To Speak All Things To All People And Speak Everyone Else's Position But Our Own.

But The True Feminist Deals Out Of A Lesbian Consciousness Whether Or Not She Ever Sleeps With Women.

It Is Axiomatic That If We Do Not Define Ourselves For Ourselves, We Will Be Defined By Others-for Their Use And To Our Detriment.