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But Writing Poems And Letters Doesn't Seem To Do Much Good.
-Sylvia Plath
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But Writing Poems And

Sylvia Plath
...
But Writing Poems And Letters Doesn't Seem To Do Much Good.

Understanding the Quote: "but writing poems and letters doesn't seem to do much good...."

This quote by Sylvia Plath reflects deeply on the theme of writing. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Writing, Letters, Writing Poems, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Sylvia Plath interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath is celebrated for insightful thoughts on writing and letters. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Writing
Letters
Writing Poems
More From Sylvia Plath
Some Pale, Hueless Flicker Of Sensitivity Is In Me. God, Must I Lose It In Cooking Scrambled Eggs For A Man.
Men
Eggs
Cooking
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.
Eye
Silence
Negative
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.
Beautiful
Sleep
Tree
Perhaps When We Find Ourselves Wanting Everything, It Is Because We Are Dangerously Close To Wanting Nothing.
Inspirational
Goal
Feminism
I Always Was Interested In Prose. As A Teenager, I Published Short Stories. And I Always Wanted To Write The Long Short Story, I Wanted To Write A Novel. Now That I Have Attained, Shall I Say, A Respectable Age, And Have Had Experiences, I Feel Much More Interested In Prose, In The Novel. I Feel That In A Novel, For Example, You Can Get In Toothbrushes And All The Paraphernalia That One Finds In Dally Life, And I Find This More Difficult In Poetry.
Teenager
Writing
Long
Wear Your Heart On Your Skin In This Life.
Tattoo
Heart
Skins
* To Know A Lot Of People I Love Pieces Of, And To Want To Synthesize Those Pieces In Me Somehow, Be It By Painting Or Writing. * To Know That Millions Of Others Are Unhappy And That Life Is A Gentleman's Agreement To Grin And Paint Your Face Gay So Others Will Feel They Are Silly To Be Unhappy, And Try To Catch The Contagion Of Joy, While Inside So Many Are Dying Of Bitterness And Unfulfillment.
Silly
Writing
Gay
Nothing Is Real Except The Present, And Already, I Feel The Weight Of Centuries Smothering Me. Some Girl A Hundred Years Ago Once Lived As I Do. And She Is Dead. I Am The Present, But I Know I, Too, Will Pass. The High Moment, The Burning Flash, Come And Are Gone, Continuous Quicksand. And I Don’t Want To Die.
Girl
Real
Years
Everything People Did Seemed So Silly, Because They Only Died In The End.
Silly
People
Ends
All I Want Is Blackness. Blackness And Silence.
Silence
Want
Blackness
As I Lay On My Back In Bed Staring Up At The Blank, White Ceiling The Stillness Seemed To Grow Bigger And Bigger Until I Felt My Eardrums Would Burst With It.
White
Bed
Ceilings
Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die.
Needs
Attention
Knows
Then I Thought, "no, I Broke It Myself. I Broke It On Purpose To Pay Myself Back For Being Such A Heel.
Purpose
Pay
Broke
I Shut My Eyes And All The World Drops Dead; I Lift My Eyes And All Is Born Again.
Spring
Eye
Perspective
I Lean To You, Numb As A Fossil. Tell Me I'm Here.
Fossils
Numb
Some Things Are Hard To Write About. After Something Happens To You, You Go To Write It Down, And Either You Over Dramatize It, Or Underplay It, Exaggerate The Wrong Parts Or Ignore The Important Ones. At Any Rate, You Never Write It Quite The Way You Want To.
Inspirational
Writing
Important
And I Am Aware Of My Heart: It Opens And Closes Its Bowl Of Red Blooms Out Of Sheer Love Of Me.
Heart
Red
Bowls
The Trouble About Jumping Was That If You Didn't Pick The Right Number Of Stories, You Might Still Be Alive When You Hit Bottom.
Jumping
Numbers
Stories
I Wanted To Be Where Nobody I Knew Could Ever Come.
Bell Jar
Wanted
I Felt Overstuffed And Dull And Disappointed, The Way I Always Do The Day After Christmas.
Christmas
Way
Dull
She Stared At Her Reflection In The Glossed Shop Windows As If To Make Sure, Moment By Moment, That She Continued To Exist.
Reflection
Window
Moments
At This Rate, I'd Be Lucky If I Wrote A Page A Day. Then I Knew What The Problem Was. I Needed Experience. How Could I Write About Life When I'd Never Had A Love Affair Or A Baby Or Even Seen Anybody Die? A Girl I Knew Had Just Won A Prize For A Short Story About Her Adventures Among The Pygmies In Africa. How Could I Compete With That Sort Of Thing?
Girl
Baby
Writing
As A Poet I Would Say Everything Should Be Able To Come Into A Poem But I Can't Put Toothbrushes In A Poem. I Really Can't.
Able
Poet
Should
Every Woman Adores A Fascist, The Boot In The Face, The Brute Brute Heart Of A Brute Like You.
Heart
Boots
Faces
I Felt The Mask Crumple, The Great Poisonous Store Of Corrosive Ashes Begin To Spew Out Of My Mouth.
Ashes
Mouths
Mask
Perhaps Some Day I'll Crawl Back Home, Beaten, Defeated. But Not As Long As I Can Make Stories Out Of My Heartbreak, Beauty Out Of Sorrow.
Heartbreak
Home
Long
I Have Let Things Slip, A Thirty-year~old Cargo Boat Stubbornly Hanging On To My Name And Address.
Names
Addresses
Hanging On
Cold Glass, How You Insert Yourself Between Myself And Myself. I Scratch Like A Cat. The Blood That Runs Is Dark Fruit- An Effect, A Cosmetic. You Smile. No, It Is Not Fatal.
Running
Cat
Dark
Why Do We Electrocute Men For Murdering An Individual And Then Pin A Purple Heart On Them For Mass Slaughter Of Someone Arbitrarily Labeled “enemy?
Heart
Men
Purple
Every Day Is Precious And I Feel Infinitely Sad At This Time Melting Away From Me.
Melting Away
Melting
Feels
It Is As If My Life Were Magically Run By Two Electric Currents: Joyous Positive And Despairing Negative--which Ever Is Running At The Moment Dominates My Life, Floods It.
Depression
Running
Two
I Can't Think Logically About Who I Am Or Where I Am Going. I Have Been Very Ecstatic, Horribly Depressed, Shocked, Elated, Enlightened, And Enervated.
Thinking
Who I Am
Enlightened
Hurl Yourself At Goals Above Your Head And Bear The Lacerations That Come When You Slip And Make A Fool Of Yourself. Try Always, As Long As You Have Breath In Your Body, To Take The Hard Way–and Work, Work, Work To Build Yourself Into A Rich, Continually Evolving Entity.
Long
Goal
Trying
I Hate Handing Over Money To People For Doing What I Could Just As Easily Do Myself, It Makes Me Nervous.
Hate
People
Nervous
If Neurotic Is Wanting Two Mutually Exclusive Things At One And The Same Time, Then I'm Neurotic As Hell.
Two
Neurosis
Hell
I Know The Bottom, She Says. I Know It With My Great Tap Root: It Is What You Fear. I Do Not Fear It: I Have Been There.
Roots
Do Not Fear
Bottom
I Can't Deceive Myself Out Of The Bare Stark Realization That No Matter How Enthusiastic You Are, No Matter How Sure That Character Is Fate, Nothing Is Real, Past Or Future, When You Are Alone In Your Room With The Clock Ticking Loudly Into The False Cheerful Brilliance Of The Electric Light. 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.
Suicide
Real
Character
The Thought That I Might Kill Myself Formed In My Mind Coolly As A Tree Or A Flower.
Flower
Tree
Mind
Feel Oddly Barren. My Sickness Is When Words Draw In Their Horns And The Physical World Refuses To Be Ordered, Recreated, Arranged And Selected. I Am A Victim Of It Then, Not A Master.
World
Sickness
Victim
I Knew Chemistry Would Be Worse, Because I'd Seen A Big Card Of The Ninety-odd Elements Hung Up In The Chemistry Lab, And All The Perfectly Good Words Like Gold And Silver And Cobalt And Aluminum Were Shortened To Ugly Abbreviations With Different Decimal Numbers After Them.
Numbers
Perfectly Good
Gold
There Is More Than One Good Way To Drown.
Way
Good Way
Why Can’t I Try On Different Lives, Like Dresses, To See Which Fits Best And Is More Becoming?
Trying
Dresses
Different
I Am So Hungry For A Big Smashing Creative Burgeoning Burdened Love.
Inspirational
Creative
Hungry
In This Particular Tub, Two Knees Jut Up Like Icebergs, While Minute Brown Hairs Rise On Arms And Legs In A Fringe Of Kelp; Green Soap Navigates The Tidal Slosh Of Seas Breaking On Legendary Beaches; In Faith We Shall Board Our Imagined Ship And Wildly Sail Among Sacred Islands Of The Mad Till Death Shatters The Fabulous Stars And Makes Us Real.
Beach
Stars
Real
How We Need Another Soul To Cling To.
Loneliness
Soul
Needs
My Best Friends When I Was Young Were Always Doctors. I Used To Dress Up In A White Gauze Helmet And Go Round And See Babies Born And Cadavers Cut Open. This Fascinated Me, But I Could Never Bring Myself To Disciplining Myself To The Point Where I Could Learn All The Details That One Has To Learn To Be A Good Doctor. This Is The Sort Of Opposition: Somebody Who Deals Directly With Human Experiences, Is Able To Cure, To Mend, To Help, This Sort Of Thing.
Baby
Cutting
Doctors
I Can't Be Satisfied With The Colossal Job Of Merely Living.
Jobs
Satisfied
I Can
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.
Heart
Hair
Blood
I Am Gone Quite Mad With The Knowledge Of Accepting The Overwhelming Number Of Things I Can Never Know, Places I Can Never Go, And People I Can Never Be.
Numbers
People
Mad
Piece By Piece, I Fed My Wardrobe To The Night Wind, And Flutteringly, Like A Loved One’s Ashes, The Gray Scraps Were Ferried Off, To Settle Here, There, Exactly Where I Would Never Know, In The Dark Heart Of New York.
New York
Heart
Dark
I Didn't Really See Why People Should Look At Me. Plenty Of People Looked Queerer Than I Did.
People
Looks
Should
It Was My First Big Chance, But Here I Was, Sitting Back And Letting It Run Through My Fingers Like So Much Water.
Running
Water
Sitting
I Hadn't, At The Last Moment, Felt Like Washing Off The Two Diagonal Lines Of Dried Blood That Marked My Cheeks. They Seemed Touching, And Rather Spectacular, And I Thought I Would Carry Them Around With Me, Like The Relic Of A Dead Lover, Till They Wore Off Of Their Own Accord.
Blood
Two
Touching
The Worst Enemy To Creativity Is Self-doubt.
Inspirational
Life
Beautiful
Not Easy To State The Change You Made. If I'm Alive Now, I Was Dead, Though, Like A Stone, Unbothered By It.
Alive
Stones
Bell Jar
I May Never Be Happy, But Tonight I Am Content. At Times Like This I'd Call Myself A Fool To Ask For More.
Tonight
May
Fool
Life Was Not To Be Sitting In Hot Amorphic Leisure In My Backyard Idly Writing Or Not Writing, As The Spirit Moved Me. It Was, Instead, Running Madly, In A Crowded Schedule, In A Squirrel Cage Of Busy People. Working, Living, Dancing, Dreaming, Talking, Kissing- Singing, Laughing, Learning.
Running
Dream
Writing
And There's The Fallacy Of Existence: The Idea That One Could Be Happy Forever And Age With A Given Situation Or Series Of Accomplishments.
Inspirational
Ideas
Accomplishment
I Want To Write Because I Have The Urge To Excel In One Medium Of Translation And Expression Of Life. I Can't Be Satisfied With The Colossal Job Of Merely Living. Oh, No, I Must Order Life In Sonnets And Sestinas And Provide A Verbal Reflector For My 60-watt Lighted Head.
Jobs
Writing
Expression
Not Being Perfect Hurts.
Hurt
Perfect
Not Being Perfect
I Wanted To Do Everything Once And For All And Be Through With It.
Wanted
I Am What I Feel And Think And Do.
Thinking
Feels
I Saw Myself Sitting In The Crotch Of This Fig Tree, Starving To Death, Just Because I Couldn't Make Up My Mind Which Of The Figs I Would Choose. I Wanted Each And Every One Of Them, But Choosing One Meant Loosing All The Rest, And, As I Sat There, Unable To Decide, The Figs Began To Wrinkle And Go Black, And, One By One, They Plopped To The Ground At My Feet.
Wrinkles
Feet
Tree
I Want To Taste And Glory In Each Day, And Never Be Afraid To Experience Pain; And Never Shut Myself Up In A Numb Core Of Nonfeeling, Or Stop Questioning And Criticizing Life And Take The Easy Way Out. To Learn And Think: To Think And Live; To Live And Learn: This Always, With New Insight, New Understanding, And New Love.
Pain
Thinking
Understanding
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.
Sky
Needs
Orion
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.
Character
Fate
Numbness
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.
Suicide
Morning
Rain
When I Was Nineteen, Pureness Was The Great Issue. Instead Of The World Being Divided Up Into Catholics And Protestants Or Republicans And Democrats Or White Men And Black Men Or Even Men And Women, I Saw The World Divided Into People Who Had Slept With Somebody And People Who Hadn’t, And This Seemed The Only Really Significant Difference Between One Person And Another.
Men
White Man
Differences
Read Widely Of Others' Experiences, Even If It'd Be More Comfortable To Snuggle Back In The Comforting Cotton-wool Of Blissful Ignorance.
Inspirational
Life
Ignorance
And I, Love, Am A Pathological Liar.
Liars
Pathological Liar
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.
Eye
Feminism
Pits
I'm Never Going To Get Married." "you're Crazy." Buddy Brightened. "you'll Change Your Mind." "no. My Mind's Made Up.
Crazy
Mind
Married
I’d Discovered, After A Lot Of Extreme Apprehension About What Spoons To Use, That If You Do Something Incorrect At Table With A Certain Arrogance, As If You Knew Perfectly Well You Were Doing It Properly, You Can Get Away With It And Nobody Will Think You Are Bad-mannered Or Poorly Brought Up. They Will Think You Are Original And Very Witty.
Witty
Food
Thinking
I Guess They Call It Suicide, But I'm To Full To Swallow My Pride I Can't Stand Losing You The Police Dying Is An Art, Like Everything Else. I Do It Exceptionally Well.
Suicide
Art
Suicidal
Happy! That Is Indefinable As Far As States Of Being Go.
States
Indefinable
There Is So Much Hurt In This Game Of Searching For A Mate, Of Testing, Trying. And You Realize Suddenly That You Forgot It Was A Game, And Turn Away In Tears.
Inspirational
Hurt
Games
I Am Solitary As Grass. What Is It I Miss? Shall I Ever Find It, Whatever It Is?
Missing
Grass
Solitary
I Like People Too Much Or Not At All. I've Got To Go Down Deep, To Fall Into People, To Really Know Them.
Fall
People
Feminism
Can You Understand? Someone, Somewhere, Can You Understand Me A Little, Love Me A Little?
Littles
Little Love
Understand Me
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.
Lying
Flower
Hands
When I Fell Out Of The Light, I Entered The Stomach Of Indifference, The Wordless Cupboard.
Light
Numbness
Emptiness
...we Shall Board Our Imagined Ship And Wildly Sail Among Sacred Islands Of The Mad Till Death Shatters The Fabulous Stars And Makes Us Real.
Stars
Real
Islands
The Silence Between Us Was So Profound I Thought Part Of It Must Be My Fault.
Profound
Silence
Faults
The Only Reason I Remembered This Play Was Because It Had A Mad Person In It, And Everything I Had Ever Read About Mad People Stuck In My Mind, While Everything Else Flew Out.
Play
People
Mad
Ash, Ash —- You Poke And Stir. Flesh, Bone, There Is Nothing There—— A Cake Of Soap, A Wedding Ring, A Gold Filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out Of The Ash I Rise With My Red Hair And I Eat Men Like Air.
Men
Hair
Cake
A Psychiatrist Is The God Of Our Age. But They Cost Money.
Age
Cost
Psychiatrist
Look At That Ugly Dead Mask Here And Do Not Forget It. It Is A Chalk Mask With Dead Dry Poison Behind It, Like The Death Angel. It Is What I Was This Fall, And What I Never Want To Be Again. The Pouting Disconsolate Mouth, The Flat, Bored, Numb, Expressionless Eyes: Symptoms Of The Foul Decay Within.
Depression
Fall
Eye
Every Day One Has To Earn The Name Of 'writer' Over Again, With Much Wrestling.
Wrestling
Names
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.
Book
Sight
Black
I'm Sarcastic, Skeptical, And Sometimes Callous Because I'm Still Afraid, Deep Down, Of Letting Myself Be Hurt.
Sarcastic
Hurt
Sometimes
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.
War
Soldier
Would Be
Stars Open Among The Lilies. Are You Not Blinded By Such Expressionless Sirens? This Is The Silence Of Astounded Souls.
Stars
Silence
Soul
I Think That As Far As Language Goes I'm An American, I'm Afraid, My Accent Is American, My Way Of Talk Is An American Way Of Talk, I'm An Old-fashioned American. That's Probably One Of The Reasons Why I'm In England Now And Why I'll Always Stay In England.
Thinking
Way
England
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.
Europe
Gone
Use
..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 Should Have Loved A Thunderbird Instead; At Least When Spring Comes They Roar Back Again. I Shut My Eyes And All The World Drops Dead. (i Think I Made You Up Inside My Head.)
Spring
Eye
Thinking
I Collect Men With Interesting Names.
Men
Names
Interesting
If Only I Can Find Him... The Man Who Will Be Intelligent, Yet Physically Magnetic And Personable. If I Can Offer That Combination, Why Shouldn't I Expect It In A Man?
Men
Intelligent
Combination
What I Cannot Forgive Is Dishonesty - And No Matter What, Or How Hard, I Would Rather Know The Truth Of Which I Today Had Such A Clear & Devastating Vision From His Mouth Than Hear Foul Evasions, Blurrings And Rattiness.
Forgiving
Vision
Mouths
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.
Baby
Stars
Wall
England Offers New Comforts. I Could Write A Novel There.
Writing
Comfort
England
Perhaps You Considered Yourself An Oracle, Mouthpiece Of The Dead, Or Of Some God Or Other. Thirty Years Now I Have Labored To Dredge The Silt From Your Throat. I Am None The Wiser.
Years
Oracles
Thirty
I Felt Wise And Cynical As All Hell.
Wise
Cynical
Hell
The Floor Seemed Wonderfully Solid. It Was Comforting To Know I Had Fallen And Could Fall No Farther.
Fall
Comforting
Bell Jar
I Talk To God But The Sky Is Empty.
Sad
God
Faith
Yes, My Consuming Desire Is To Mingle With Road Crews, Sailors And Soldiers, Barroom Regulars - To Be A Part Of A Scene, Anonymous, Listening, Recording - All This Is Spoiled By The Fact That I Am A Girl, A Female Always Supposedly In Danger Of Assault And Battery. My Consuming Interest In Men And Their Lives Is Often Misconstrued As A Desire To Seduce Them, Or As An Invitation To Intimacy. Yes, God, I Want To Talk To Everybody As Deeply As I Can. I Want To Be Able To Sleep In An Open Field, To Travel West, To Walk Freely At Night.
Girl
Sleep
Men
So I Kiss Him, And There Is The Great Dark Sea Ahead.
Dark
Kissing
Sea
How We Need Another Soul To Cling To, Another Body To Keep Us Warm. To Rest And Trust; To Give Your Soul In Confidence: I Need This, I Need Someone To Pour Myself Into.
Giving
Soul
Needs
The First Time I Saw A Fingerbowl Was At The Home Of My Benefactress. [...] The Water Had A Few Cherry Blossoms In It, And I Thought It Must Be Some Clear Sort Of Japanese After-dinner Soup And Ate Every Bit Of It, Including The Crisp Little Blossoms.
Home
Water
Soup
I Have A Violence In Me That Is Hot As Death-blood.
Blood
Hot
Violence
My Life Is A Discipline, A Prison: I Live For My Own Work, Without Which I Am Nothing.
Discipline
Prison
Life Is
I Must Say What I Admire Most Is The Person Who Masters An Area Of Practical Experience, And Can Teach Me Something. I Mean, My Local Midwife Has Taught Me How To Keep Bees. Well, She Can't Understand Anything I Write. And I Find Myself Liking Her, May I Say, More Than Most Poets. And Among My Friends I Find People Who Know All About Boats Or Know All About Certain Sports, Or How To Cut Somebody Open And Remove An Organ. I'm Fascinated By This Mastery Of The Practical.
Sports
Writing
Mean
I Could Never Be A Complete Scholar Or A Complete Housewife Ora Completewriter: Imustcombinea Little Of All, And Thereby Be Imperfect In All.
Littles
Imperfect
Housewife
Character Is Fate.
Character
Fate
Perhaps, Perhaps This Would Be The One To Pull Me Out Of My Plunge.
Would Be
Plunge
And I Sit Here Without Identity: Faceless. My Head Aches.
Identity
Ache
Faceless
Like A Cat I Have Nine Times To Die.
Cat
Nine
Dies
In A Rabbit-fear I May Hurl Myself Under The Wheels Of The Car Because The Lights Terrify Me, And Under The Dark Blind Death Of Wheels I Will Be Safe. I Am Very Tired, Very Banal, Very Confused. I Do Not Know Who I Am Tonight. I Wanted To Walk Until I Dropped And Not Complete The Inevitable Circle Of Coming Home.
Confused
Home
Tired
I Have The One Person I Could Ever Love In This World. Now I Must Work To Be A Person Worthy Of That.
World
This World
Worthy
But They Know. They All Know. And What Am I Against So Many…?
Knows
It Was My Last Act Of Love (first Words To Her Mother In The Hospital After Her First Major Suicide Attempt)
Mother
Suicide
Suicidal
The Silence Depressed Me. It Wasn't The Silence Of Silence. It Was My Own Silence.
Depression
Silence
Feminism
I Saw The Days Of The Year Stretching Ahead Like A Series Of Bright, White Boxes, And Separating One Box From Another Was Sleep, Like A Black Shade. Only For Me, The Long Perspective Of Shades That Set Off One Box From The Next Day Had Suddenly Snapped Up, And I Could See Day After Day After Day Glaring Ahead Of Me Like A White, Broad, Infinitely Desolate Avenue.
Sleep
Years
Next Day
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.
Depression
Tired
Way
So, Now I Shall Talk Every Night. To Myself. To The Moon. I Shall Walk, As I Did Tonight, Jealous Of My Loneliness, In The Blue-silver Of The Cold Moon, Shining Brilliantly On The Drifts Of Fresh-fallen Snow, With The Myriad Sparkles. I Talk To Myself And Look At The Dark Trees, Blessedly Neutral. So Much Easier Than Facing People, Than Having To Look Happy, Invulnerable, Clever.
Clever
Loneliness
Jealous
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.
England
Wonderful
Surface
When They Asked Me What I Wanted To Be I Said I Didn’t Know. "oh, Sure You Know," The Photographer Said. "she Wants," Said Jay Cee Wittily, "to Be Everything.
Want
Photographer
Said
They Had To Call And Call And Pick The Worms Off Me Like Sticky Pearls.
Pearls
Worms
Sticky
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.
Suicide
Past
Thinking
Poetry, I Feel, Is A Tyrannical Discipline. You've Got To Go So Far, So Fast, In Such A Small Space, That You've Got To Burn Away All The Peripherals.
Space
Discipline
Feels
The Truth Comes To Me. The Truth Loves Me.
Truth Love
No Day Is Safe From News Of You.
News
Safe
I Laid My Face To The Smooth Face Of The Marble And Howled My Loss Into The Cold Salt Rain.
Rain
Loss
Salt
The Sheets Grow Heavy As A Lecher's Kiss.
Kissing
Sheets
Heavy
Now I Know What Loneliness Is, I Think. Momentary Loneliness, Anyway. It Comes From A Vague Core Of The Self - - Like A Disease Of The Blood, Dispersed Throughout The Body So That One Cannot Locate The Matrix, The Spot Of Contagion.
Fear
Loneliness
Thinking
If Only I Knew What I Wanted I Could Try To See About Getting It.
Trying
Wanted
Ifs
You Are A Dream; I Hope I Never Meet You.
Dream
Can A Selfish Egocentric Jealous And Unimaginative Female Write A Damn Thing Worthwhile?
Jealousy
Selfish
Writing
But When It Came Right Down To It, The Skin Of My Wrist Looked So White And Defensless That I Couldn't Do It. It Was As If What I Wanted To Kill Wasn't In That Skin Or The Thin Blue Pulse That Jumped Under My Thumb, But Somewhere Else, Deeper, More Secret, And A Whole Lot Harder To Get.
Truth
Blue
Somewhere Else
Let Me Sit In A Flowerpot, The Spiders Won't Notice. My Heart Is A Stopped Geranium.
Heart
Spiders
My Heart
Backward We Traveled To Reclaim The Day Before We Fell, Like Icarus, Undone; All We Find Are Altars In Decay And Profane Words Scrawled Black Across The Sun.
Black
Decay
Sun
Go Out And Do Something. It Isn’t Your Room That’s A Prison, It’s Yourself.
Rooms
Prison
Your Room
Life Has Been Some Combination Of Fairy-tale Coincidence And Joie De Vivre And Shocks Of Beauty Together With Some Hurtful Self-questioning.
Self Questioning
Hurtful
Together
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.
Inspirational
Life
Beautiful
I Love The People,' I Said. 'i Have Room In Me For Love, And For Ever So Many Little Lives.
People
Littles
Rooms
Bright Beads Of Red Are Rising Through The Ink, Hearts-blood Bubbles Smearing Out Into The Black Stream
Heart
Blood
Black
The Frost Makes A Flower, The Dew Makes A Star.
Stars
Flower
Dew
God, How I Ricochet Between Certainties And Doubts.
Doubt
Ricochet
Certainty
Secretly, In Studies And Attics And Schoolrooms All Over America, People Must Be Writing.
Writing
America
People
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.
Dark
Moon
Doors
The Trouble Was, I Had Been Inadequate All Along, I Simply Hadn't Thought About It.
Trouble
Bell Jar
Inadequate
Ironically, Henry James' Biography Comforts Me & I Long To Make Known To Him His Posthumous Reputation He Wrote, In Pain, Gave All His Life (which Is More Than I Could Think Of Doing I Have Ted, Will Have Children But Few Friends) & The Critics Insulted & Mocked Him, Readers Didn't Read Him.
Children
Pain
Thinking
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.
Wall
Tombstone
College
We Stayed At Home To Write, To Consolidate Our Outstretched Selves.
Life
Home
Writing
I Used To Pray To Recover You.
Praying
Used
I Have This Demon Who Wants Me To Run Away Screaming If I Am Going To Be Flawed, Fallible. It Wants Me To Think I'm So Good I Must Be Perfect. Or Nothing. I Am, On The Contrary, Something: A Being Who Gets Tired, Has Shyness To Fight, Has More Trouble Than Most Facing People Easily.
Running
Tired
Fighting
... Stop Trying To Get Me To Write About 'decent Courageous People' -- Read The Ladies' Home Journal For Those! ... I Believe In Going Through And Facing The Worst, Not Hiding From It.
Believe
Home
Writing
I Deserve That, Don't I, Some Sort Of Blazing Love That I Can Live With.
Blazing
I Can
Deserve
I Couldn’t See The Point Of Getting Up. I Had Nothing To Look Forward To.
Looks
Bell Jar
But When I Took Up My Pen, My Hand Made Big, Jerky Letters Like Those Of A Child, And The Lines Sloped Down The Page From Left To Right Horizontally, As If They Were Loops Of String Lying On The Paper, And Someone Had Come Along And Blown Them Askew.
Children
Lying
Hands
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.
Powerful
Drinking
Thinking
I May Never Be Happy, But Tonight I Am Content.
Inspirational
Happiness
Tonight
Let's Face It: I'm Scared, Scared And Frozen. First, I Guess, I'm Afraid For Myself ... The Old Primitive Urge For Survival. It's Getting So I Live Every Moment With Terrible Intensity. Last Night, Driving Back From Boston, I Lay Back In The Car And Let The Colored Lights Come At Me, The Music From The Radio, The Reflection Of The Guy Driving. It All Flowed Over Me With A Screaming Ache Of Pain ... Remember, Remember, This Is Now, And Now, And Now. Live It, Feel It, Cling To It. I Want To Become Acutely Aware Of All I've Taken For Granted. When You Feel That This May Be The Good-bye, The Last Time, It Hits You Harder.
Pain
Taken
Bye
What Is My Life For And What Am I Going To Do With It? I Don't Know And I'm Afraid.
Knows
I Think I Am Worthwhile Just Because I Have Optical Nerves And Can Try To Put Down What They Perceive. What A Fool!
Thinking
Trying
Nerves
There Was A Beautiful Time.
Beautiful
Bell Jar
I Drink Sherry And Wine By Myself Because I Like It And I Get The Sensuous Feeling Of Indulgence...luxury, Bliss, Erotic-tinged.
Wine
Luxury
Erotic
The Blood Of Love Welled Up In My Heart With A Slow Pain.
Pain
Heart
Blood
Over Coffee And Orange Juice The Embryonic Suicide Brightens Visibly.
Suicide
Coffee
Orange Juice
I Felt Very Still And Empty, The Way The Eye Of A Tornado Must Feel, Moving Dully Along In The Middle Of The Surrounding Hullabaloo.
Moving
Eye
Numbness
August Rain: The Best Of The Summer Gone, And The New Fall Not Yet Born. The Odd Uneven Time.
Summer
Rain
Fall
I Think If I Had Done Anything Else I Would Like To Have Been A Doctor. This Is The Sort Of Polar Opposition To Being A Writer, I Suppose.
Thinking
Doctors
Done
…i Hate Myself For Not Being Able To Go Downstairs Naturally And Seek Comfort In Numbers. I Hate Myself For Having To Sit Here And Be Torn Between I Know Not What Within Me.
Hate
Numbers
Comfort
The Moon Has Nothing To Be Sad About, Staring From Her Hood Of Bone. She Is Used To This Sort Of Thing. Her Blacks Crackle And Drag.
Moon
Darkness
Bones
Pretty Soon, The Only Doubt In My Mind Was The Precise Time And Method Of Committing Suicide. The Only Alternative I Could See Was An Eternity Of Hell For The Rest Of My Life In A Mental Hospital, And I Was Going To Use My Last Ounce Of Free Choice And Choose A Quick Clean Ending.
Suicide
Choices
Doubt
I Smile, Now, Thinking: We All Like To Think We Are Important Enough To Need Psychiatrists
Thinking
Important
Needs
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.
Life
Sleep
Tired
Is Anyone Anywhere Happy?
Happiness
The Moon, Also, Is Merciless: She Would Drag Me Cruelly, Being Barren. Her Radiance Scathes Me. Or Perhaps I Have Caught Her.
Moon
Light
Radiance
See, The Darkness Is Leaking From The Cracks. I Cannot Contain It. I Cannot Contain My Life.
Darkness
Cracks
Spiderlike, I Spin Mirrors, Loyal To My Image.
Mirrors
Loyal
Oh What A Poet I Will Flay Myself Into.
Poet
I Liked Looking On At Other People In Crucial Situations. If There Was A Road Accident Or A Street Fight Or A Baby Pickled In A Laboratory Jar For Me To Look At, I'd Stop And Look So Hard I Never Forgot It.
Baby
Fighting
People
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.
Starting Over
Judging
Forever
I Am Still Raw. I Say I May Be Back. You Know What Lies Are For. Even In Your Zen Heaven We Shan't Meet.
Lying
Heaven
May
I Suppose I'll Always Be Over-vulnerable, Slightly Paranoid.
Chaos
Vulnerable
Paranoid
Love Is A Shadow. How You Lie And Cry After It
Lying
Love Is
Shadow
I Am Dead To Them, Even Though I Once Flowered.
I Have Done, This Year, What I Said I Would: Overcome My Fear Of Facing A Blank Page Day After Day, Acknowledging Myself, In My Deepest Emotions, A Writer, Come What May.
Years
Overcoming
Done
I Am Not A Historian, But I Find Myself Being More And More Fascinated By History And Now I Find Myself Reading More And More About History. I Am Very Interested In Napoleon, At The Present: I'm Very Interested In Battles, In Wars, In Gallipoli, The First World War And So On, And I Think That As I Age I Am Becoming More And More Historical. I Certainly Wasn't At All In My Early Twenties.
War
Reading
Thinking
I Have Been Holding A Dialogue With Myself And Girding Myself To Stand Fast Without Running.
Running
Dialogue
Has Beens
Please Don’t Expect Me To Always Be Good And Kind And Loving. There Are Times When I Will Be Cold And Thoughtless And Hard To Understand.
Chaos
Cold
Kind
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.
Gay
Order
Illusion
I Felt Dull And Flat And Full Of Shattered Visions.
Vision
Dull
Shattered
The First Time It Happened I Was Ten. It Was An Accident. The Second Time I Meant To Last It Out And Not Come Back At All. I Rocked Shut As A Seashell. They Had To Call And Call And Pick The Worms Off Me Like Sticky Pearls. Dying Is An Art, Like Everything Else. I Do It Exceptionally Well. I Do It So It Feels Like Hell. I Do It So It Feels Real. I Guess You Could Say I've A Call.
Art
Real
Suicidal
I Feel Terribly Vulnerable And 'not-myself' When I'm Not Writing.
Writing
Vulnerable
Feels
I Like People Too Much Or Not At All.
I Hate You
People
Too Much
My Mother Said The Cure For Thinking Too Much About Yourself Was Helping Somebody Who Was Worse Off Than You.
Mother
Thinking
Too Much
When They Asked Me What I Wanted To Be I Said I Didn't Know.
Bell Jar
Said
Wanted
I Feel Self-repressed Again. The Old Fall Disease. Where Is My Willpower? The Idea Of A Life Gets In The Way Of My Life...i Dream Too Much, Work Too Little.
Dream
Fall
Self
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.
White
Rising Up
Feet
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