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A Bad Dream.to The Person In The Bell Jar, Blank And Stopped As A Dead Baby, The World Itself Is The Bad Dream.a Bad Dream.i Remembered Everything.i Remembered The Cadavers And Doreen And The Story Of The Fig-tree And Marco's Diamond And The Sailor On The Common And Doctor Gordon's Wall-eyed Nurse And The Broken Thermometers And The Negro With His Two Kinds Of Beans And The Twenty Pounds I Gained On Insulin And The Rock That Bulged Between Sky And Sea Like A Grey Skull.maybe Forgetfulness, Like A Kind Snow, Should Numb And Cover Them.but They Were Part Of Me. They Were My Landscape

-Sylvia Plath

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A Bad Dream.to The

Sylvia Plath

...

A Bad Dream.to The Person In The Bell Jar, Blank And Stopped As A Dead Baby, The World Itself Is The Bad Dream.a Bad Dream.i Remembered Everything.i Remembered The Cadavers And Doreen And The Story Of The Fig-tree And Marco's Diamond And The Sailor On The Common And Doctor Gordon's Wall-eyed Nurse And The Broken Thermometers And The Negro With His Two Kinds Of Beans And The Twenty Pounds I Gained On Insulin And The Rock That Bulged Between Sky And Sea Like A Grey Skull.maybe Forgetfulness, Like A Kind Snow, Should Numb And Cover Them.but They Were Part Of Me. They Were My Landscape

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The Abstract Kills, The Concrete Saves.

I Felt Like A Racehorse In A World Without Racetracks Or A Champion College Footballer Suddenly Confronted By Wall Street And A Business Suit, His Days Of Glory Shrunk To A Little Gold Cup On His Mantel With A Date Engraved On It Like The Date On A Tombstone.

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…beating Time Along The Edge Of Thought.

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Hour By Hour, Day By Day, Life Becomes Possible.

The Tulips Are Too Red...they Hurt Me.

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I Wonder Why I Don't Go To Bed And Go To Sleep. But Then It Would Be Tomorrow, So I Decide That No Matter How Tired, No Matter How Incoherent I Am, I Can Skip On Hour More Of Sleep And Live.

If I Rest, If I Think Inward, I Go Mad.

I Wanted To Do Everything Once And For All And Be Through With It.

I Began To Think Vodka Was My Drink At Last. It Didn’t Taste Like Anything, But It Went Straight Down Into My Stomach Like A Sword Swallowers’ Sword And Made Me Feel Powerful And Godlike.

If You Love Her", I Said, "you'll Love Somebody Else Someday.

I Desire The Things That Will Destroy Me In The End.

Outcast On A Cold Star, Unable To Feel Anything But An Awful Helpless Numbness. I Look Down Into The Warm, Earthy World. Into A Nest Of Lovers' Beds, Baby Cribs, Meal Tables, All The Solid Commerce Of Life In This Earth, And Feel Apart, Enclosed In A Wall Of Glass.

August Rain: The Best Of The Summer Gone, And The New Fall Not Yet Born. The Odd Uneven Time.

I Wanted To Tell Her That If Only Something Were Wrong With My Body It Would Be Fine, I Would Rather Have Anything Wrong With My Body Than Something Wrong With My Head, But The Idea Seemed So Involved And Wearisome That I Didn’t Say Anything. I Only Burrowed Down Further In The Bed.

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I Cut You Out Because I Couldn't Stand Being A Passing Fancy.

I Am So Hungry For A Big Smashing Creative Burgeoning Burdened Love.

I May Never Be Happy, But Tonight I Am Content. At Times Like This I'd Call Myself A Fool To Ask For More.

I Didn’t Want My Picture Taken Because I Was Going To Cry. I Didn’t Know Why I Was Going To Cry, But I Knew That If Anybody Spoke To Me Or Looked At Me Too Closely The Tears Would Fly Out Of My Eyes And The Sobs Would Fly Out Of My Throat And I’d Cry For A Week. I Could Feel The Tears Brimming And Sloshing In Me Like Water In A Glass That Is Unsteady And Too Full.

But Life Is Long. And It Is The Long Run That Balances The Short Flare Of Interest And Passion.

It Was Like The First Time I Saw A Cadaver. For Weeks Afterward The Cadavers Head, Or What Was Left Of It - Floated Up Behind My Eggs And Bacon At Breakfast And In The Face Of Buddy Willard, Who Was Responsible For My Seeing It In The First Place, And Pretty Soon I Felt As Though I Were Carrying That Cadavers Head Around With Me On A String, Like Some Black, Noseless Balloon Stinking Of Vinegar.

So I Kiss Him, And There Is The Great Dark Sea Ahead.

I've Eaten A Bag Of Green Apples. Boarded The Train, There's No Getting Off

On The Train: Staring Hypnotized At The Blackness Outside The Window, Feeling The Incomparable Rhythmic Language Of The Wheels, Clacking Out Nursery Rhymes, Summing Up Moments Of The Mind Like The Chant Of A Broken Record: God Is Dead, God Is Dead. Going, Going, Going. And The Pure Bliss Of This, The Erotic Rocking Of The Coach. France Splits Open Like A Ripe Fig In The Mind; We Are Raping The Land, We Are Not Stopping.

Here I Am, A Bundle Of Past Recollections And Future Dreams, Knotted Up In A Reasonably Attractive Bundle Of Flesh. I Remember What This Flesh Has Gone Through; I Dream Of What It May Go Through.

I Must Not Be Selfless: Develop A Sense Of Self. A Solidness That Can't Be Attacked.

Over Coffee And Orange Juice The Embryonic Suicide Brightens Visibly.

I Am Too Pure For You Or Anyone.

The Silence Between Us Was So Profound I Thought Part Of It Must Be My Fault.

Whenever I'm Sad I'm Going To Die, Or So Nervous I Can't Sleep, Or In Love With Somebody I Won't Be Seeing For A Week, I Slump Down Just So Far And Then I Say: 'i'll Go Take A Hot Bath.

I Was My Own Woman. The Next Step Was To Find The Proper Sort Of Man.

I Need Some Older, Wiser Being To Cry To. I Talk To God, But The Sky Is Empty, And Orion Walks By And Doesn't Speak.

Wear Your Heart On Your Skin In This Life.

It Is A Terrible Thing To Be So Open: It Is As If My Heart Put On A Face And Walked Into The World.

I Woke To The Sound Of Rain.

With Me, The Present Is Forever, And Forever Is Always Shifting, Flowing, Melting. This Second Is Life. And When It Is Gone It Is Dead. But You Can't Start Over With Each New Second. You Have To Judge By What Is Dead. It's Like Quicksand... Hopeless From The Start.

I Must Say That I Am Not Very Genteel And I Feel That Gentility Has A Stranglehold: The Neatness, The Wonderful Tidiness, Which Is So Evident Everywhere In England Is Perhaps More Dangerous Than It Would Appear On The Surface.

I Have No Preconceptions. Whatever I See, I Swallow Immediately. Just As It Is, Unmisted By Love Or Dislike. I Am Not Cruel, Only Truthful.

I Decided I Would Put Off The Novel Until I Had Gone To Europe And Had A Lover, And That I Would Never Learn A Word Of Shorthand. If I Never Learned Shorthand I Would Never Have To Use It.

The Frost Makes A Flower, The Dew Makes A Star.

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I Talk To God But The Sky Is Empty.

Well, I Know Now. I Know A Little More How Much A Simple Thing Like A Snowfall Can Mean To A Person

I May Never Be Happy, But Tonight I Am Content.

God, How I Ricochet Between Certainties And Doubts.

I Want To Force Myself Again And Again To Leave The Warmth And Security Of Static Situations And Move Into The World Of Growth And Suffering Where The Real Books Are People's Minds And Souls.

The Truth Comes To Me. The Truth Loves Me.

God, If Ever I Have Come Close To Wanting To Commit Suicide, It Is Now, With The Groggy Sleepless Blood Dragging Through My Veins, And The Air Thick And Gray With Rain ... I Fell Into Bed Again This Morning, Begging For Sleep, Withdrawing Into The Dark, Warm, Fetid Escape From Action, From Responsibility. No Good.

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I Felt Dumb And Subdued. Every Time I Tried To Concentrate, My Mind Glided Off, Like A Skater, Into A Large Empty Space, And Pirouetted There, Absently.

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I Wondered Why I Couldn't Go The Whole Way Doing What I Should Any More. This Made Me Sad And Tired. Then I Wondered Why I Couldn't Go The Whole Way Doing What I Shouldn't, The Way Doreen Did, And This Made Me Even Sadder And More Tired.

I Felt Wise And Cynical As All Hell.

If I Didn’t Think, I’d Be Much Happier.

The Blood Jet Is Poetry And There Is No Stopping It.

Masks Are The Order Of The Day - And The Least I Can Do Is Cultivate The Illusion That I Am Gay, Serene, Not Hollow And Afraid.

Oh, Something Is There, Waiting For Me. Perhaps Someday The Revelation Will Burst In Upon Me And I Will See The Other Side Of This Monumental Grotesque Joke. And Then I'll Laugh. And Then I'll Know What Life Is.

So Learn About Life. Cut Yourself A Big Slice With The Silver Server, A Big Slice Of Pie. Open Your Eyes. Let Life Happen.

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I, Love, I Am The Pure Acetylene Virgin Attended By Roses.

Winter Dawn Is The Color Of Metal, The Trees Stiffen Into Place Like Burnt Nerves.

Maybe Forgetfulness, Like A Kind Snow, Should Numb And Cover Them. But They Were A Part Of Me. They Were My Landscape.

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It Seemed Silly To Wash One Day When I Would Only Have To Wash Again The Next. It Made Me Tired Just To Think Of It.

I Wanted To Crawl In Between Those Black Lines Of Print, The Way You Crawl Through A Fence, And Go To Sleep Under That Beautiful Big Green Fig-tree.

My Mother Said The Cure For Thinking Too Much About Yourself Was Helping Somebody Who Was Worse Off Than You.

God, Is This All It Is, The Ricocheting Down The Corridor Of Laughter And Tears? Of Self-worship And Self-loathing? Of Glory And Disgust?

I Like People Too Much Or Not At All.

I Like You, But Not Too Much. I Don’t Want To Like Anybody Too Much.

I Felt The Mask Crumple, The Great Poisonous Store Of Corrosive Ashes Begin To Spew Out Of My Mouth.

I Never Feel So Much Myself As When I'm In A Hot Bath.

There Is A Charge For The Eyeing Of My Scars, There Is A Charge For The Hearing Of My Heart - It Really Goes. And There Is A Charge, A Very Large Charge, For A Word Or A Touch Or A Bit Of Blood Or A Piece Of My Hair Or My Clothes.

I Am Accused. I Dream Of Massacres. I Am A Garden Of Black And Red Agonies. I Drink Them, Hating Myself, Hating And Fearing. And Now The World Conceives Its End And Runs Toward It, Arms Held Out In Love.

Why The Hell Are We Conditioned Into The Smooth Strawberry-and-cream Mother-goose-world, Alice-in-wonderland Fable, Only To Be Broken On The Wheel As We Grow Older And Become Aware Of Ourselves As Individuals With A Dull Responsibility In Life?

I Lay And Cried, And Began To Feel Again, To Admit I Was Human, Vulnerable, Sensitive. I Began To Remember How It Had Been Before; How There Was That Germ Of Positive Creativeness. Character Is Fate; And Damn, I'd Better Work On My Character. I Had Been Withdrawing Into A Retreat Of Numbness: It Is So Much Safer To Not Feel, Not To Let The World Touch One.

What Is My Life For And What Am I Going To Do With It? I Don't Know And I'm Afraid. I Can Never Read All The Books I Want; I Can Never Be All The People I Want And Live All The Lives I Want.

Not Being Perfect Hurts.

Not Being Perfect

As A Poet, One Lives A Bit On Air. I Always Like Someone Who Can Teach Me Something Practical.

A Dispassionate White Sun Shone At The Summit Of The Sky. I Wanted To Hone Myself On It Till I Grew Saintly And Thin And Essential As The Blade Of A Knife.

The Thought That I Might Kill Myself Formed In My Mind Coolly As A Tree Or A Flower.

All I Want Is Blackness. Blackness And Silence.

If Every Soldier Refused To Take Arms ... There Would Be No Wars; But No One Has The Courage To Be The First To Live According To Christ And Socrates, Because In A World Of Opportunists They Would Be Martyred.

And If You Have No Past Or Future Which, After All, Is All That The Present Is Made Of, Why Then You May As Well Dispose Of The Empty Shell Of Present And Commit Suicide.

What I Didn't Say Was That Each Time I Picked Up A German Dictionary Or A German Book, The Very Sight Of Those Dense, Black, Barbed-wire Letters Made My Mind Shut Like A Clam.

My Life Is A Discipline, A Prison: I Live For My Own Work, Without Which I Am Nothing.

The Moon Is No Door. It Is A Face In Its Own Right, White As A Knuckle And Terribly Upset. It Drags The Sea After It Like A Dark Crime; It Is Quiet With The O-gape Of Complete Despair. I Live Here.

Spiderlike, I Spin Mirrors, Loyal To My Image.

The Sickness Rolled Through Me In Great Waves. After Each Wave It Would Fade Away And Leave Me Limp As A Wet Leaf And Shivering All Over And Then I Would Feel It Rising Up In Me Again, And The Glittering White Torture Chamber Tiles Under My Feet And Over My Head And All Four Sides Closed In And Squeezed Me To Pieces.

The Only Thing I Could Think Of Was Turkey Neck And Turkey Gizzards And I Felt Very Depressed.

I Am Afraid. I Am Not Solid, But Hollow. I Feel Behind My Eyes A Numb, Paralyzed Cavern, A Pit Of Hell, A Mimicking Nothingness.

You Ask Me Why I Spend My Life Writing? Do I Find Entertainment? Is It Worthwhile? Above All, Does It Pay? If Not, Then, Is There A Reason?... I Write Only Because There Is A Voice Within Me. That Will Not Be Still.

All The Heat And Fear Had Purged Itself. I Felt Surprisingly At Peace. The Bell Jar Hung Suspended A Few Feet Above My Head. I Was Open To The Circulating Air.

Miracles Occur, If You Dare To Call Those Spasmodic Tricks Of Radiance Miracles. The Wait's Begun Again, The Long Wait For The Angel, For That Rare, Random Descent.

Love, Love, I Have Hung Our Cave With Roses.

There Is Something Demoralizing About Watching Two People Get More And More Crazy About Each Other, Especially When You Are The Only Extra Person In The Room. It's Like Watching Paris From An Express Caboose Heading In The Opposite Direction--every Second The City Gets Smaller And Smaller, Only You Feel It's Really You Getting Smaller And Smaller And Lonelier And Lonelier, Rushing Away From All Those Lights And Excitement At About A Million Miles An Hour.

Love Set You Going Like A Fat Gold Watch. The Midwife Slapped Your Footsoles, And Your Bald Cry Took Its Place Among The Elements.

I Must Bridge The Gap Between Adolescent Glitter And Mature Glow.

I Didn’t Want Any Flowers, I Only Wanted To Lie With My Hands Turned Up And Be Utterly Empty. How Free It Is, You Have No Idea How Free—— The Peacefulness Is So Big It Dazes You, And It Asks Nothing, A Name Tag, A Few Trinkets. It Is What The Dead Close On, Finally; I Imagine Them Shutting Their Mouths On It, Like A Communion Tablet.

Can A Selfish Egocentric Jealous And Unimaginative Female Write A Damn Thing Worthwhile?

When They Asked Some Old Roman Philosopher Or Other How He Wanted To Die, He Said He Would Open His Veins In A Warm Bath. I Thought It Would Be Easy, Lying In The Tup And Seeing The Redness Flower From My Wrists, Flush After Flush Through The Clear Water, Till I Sank Into Sleep Under A Surface Gaudy As Poppies.

I Lay In That Tub On The Seventeenth Floor Of This Hotel For-women-only, High Up Over The Jazz And Push Of New York, For Near Unto An Hour, And I Felt Myself Growing Pure Again. I Don't Believe In Baptism Or The Waters Of Jordan Or Anything Like That, But I Guess I Feel About A Hot Bath The Way Those Religious People Feel About Holy Water.

Tomorrow I Will Curse The Dawn, But There Will Be Other, Earlier Nights, And The Dawns Will Be No Longer Hell Laid Out In Alarms And Raw Bells And Sirens.

I Have Been Holding A Dialogue With Myself And Girding Myself To Stand Fast Without Running.

The Man Creates A Pseudonym And Hides Behind It Like A Worm

The Day I Went Into Physics Class It Was Death.

You've Only Got So Long To Live.

I Believe That One Should Be Able To Control And Manipulate Experiences, Even The Most Terrific, Like Madness, Being Tortured, This Sort Of Experience, And One Should Be Able To Manipulate These Experiences With An Informed And An Intelligent Mini.

Why Can’t I Try On Different Lives, Like Dresses, To See Which Fits Best And Is More Becoming?

It Is Best To Meet In A Cul-de-sac, A Palace Of Velvet With Windows Of Mirrors. There One Is Safe, There Are No Family Photographs, No Rings Through The Nose, No Cries.

Sometimes I Feel Like I'm Not Solid. I'm Hollow. There's Nothing Behind My Eyes. I'm A Negative Of A Person. All I Want Is Blackness, Blackness And Silence.

Apparently, The Most Difficult Feat For A Cambridge Male Is To Accept A Woman Not Merely As Feeling, Not Merely As Thinking, But As Managing A Complex, Vital Interweaving Of Both.

I Fancied You'd Return The Way You Said, But I Grow Old And I Forget Your Name. (i Think I Made You Up Inside My Head.)

I Laid My Face To The Smooth Face Of The Marble And Howled My Loss Into The Cold Salt Rain.

I Would Catch Sight Of Some Flawless Man Off In The Distance, But As Soon As He Moved Closer I Immediately Saw He Wouldn’t Do At All.

I Collected Men With Interesting Names. I Already Knew A Socrates. He Was Tall And Ugly And Intellectual And The Son Of Some Big Greek Movie Producer In Hollywood, But Also A Catholic, Which Ruined It For Both Of Us.

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Roger Tory Peterson

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