I was reading near the end of Anais Nin's Collages
(1964), when i realized she was describing Djuna Barnes
after her retreat in New York City ("Judith Sands"). It was
such a beautifully subtle evocation that i wanted to write
in the name for those who wouldn't get it.
   On the next page someone had done
that for me.

Every day however, i think: Why not now?
   (When i know why not now)--
it's not really a question--.....it's an insect in the shape
of a leaf.

It's only when my ego's attenuated to a few rags that
i can call every form of fear by its true name.

Too often i do "good deeds" for the singing of a lie
inside me: that this changes the person i am. I should
do them only out of an understanding of causality.
I must know by now, nothing ever changed me without
great pain--& i continue to regret it till long afterwards.

Doubt is a maggot in the bottom of the ricebowl.