Живи или умри

The surgeons shook their heads. They really didn't know — Would the cripple inside of me be a cripple that would show?

— from Cripples and Other Stories, October 1965

All this is death. In the mind there is a thin alley called death and I move through it as through water. My body is useless. It lies, curled like a dog on the carpet. It has given up.

– from For The Year Of The Insane, August 1963

Breathe! And you'll know . . . an ant in a pot of chocolate, it boils and surrounds you. There is no news in fear but in the end it's fear that drowns you.

— from Imitations of Drowning, September 1962