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I Had Removed My Patent Leather Shoes After A While, For They Foundered Badly In The Sand. It Pleased Me To Think They Would Be Perched There On The Silver Log, Pointing Out To Sea, Like A Sort Of Soul-compass, After I Was Dead.

-Sylvia Plath

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I Had Removed My

Sylvia Plath

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I Had Removed My Patent Leather Shoes After A While, For They Foundered Badly In The Sand. It Pleased Me To Think They Would Be Perched There On The Silver Log, Pointing Out To Sea, Like A Sort Of Soul-compass, After I Was Dead.

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…'it Always Has To End, Doesn't It? We Always Have To Separate.' 'yes,' I Said. He Was Insistent, 'but It Doesn't Always Have To Be That Way. We Could Be Together Some Day For Always.' 'oh, No,' I Told Him, Wondering If He Knew It Was All Over. 'we Keep Running Till We Die. We Separate, Get Further Apart, Till We Are Dead.

Everything In Life Is Writable.

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Character Is Fate.

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Doing All The Little Tricky Things It Takes To Grow Up, Step By Step, Into An Anxious And Unsettling World.

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I Have A Violence In Me That Is Hot As Death-blood.

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 Write Only Because There Is A Voice Within Me That Will Not Be Still

I Inhabit The Wax Image Of Myself, A Doll's Body. Sickness Begins Here; I Am A Dartboard For Witches.

I Want To Be Important. By Being Different. And These Girls Are All The Same.

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We Stayed At Home To Write, To Consolidate Our Outstretched Selves.

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I Hurl My Heart To Halt His Pace.

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

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

It's A Hell Of A Responsibility To Be Yourself. It's Much Easier To Be Somebody Else Or Nobody At All.

I've Got To Have Something. I Want To Stop It All, The Whole Monumental Grotesque Joke, Before It's Too Late. But Writing Poems And Letters Doesn't Seem To Do Much Good.

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I Tried To Speak In A Cool, Calm Way, But The Zombie Rose Up In My Throat And Choked Me Off.

I Must Get My Soul Back From You; I Am Killing My Flesh Without It.

Living With Him Is Like Being Told A Perpetual Story: His Mind Is The Biggest, Most Imaginative I Have Ever Met. I Could Live In Its Growing Countries Forever.

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

I Felt Wise And Cynical As All Hell.

When They Asked Me What I Wanted To Be I Said I Didn't Know.

We Should Meet In Another Life, We Should Meet In Air, Me And You.

If Neurotic Is Wanting Two Mutually Exclusive Things At One And The Same Time, Then I'm Neurotic As Hell.

You Smile. No, It Is Not Fatal.

... You Looked Around And Saw Everybody Either Married Or Busy And Happy And Thinking And Being Creative, And You Felt Scared, Sick, Lethargic, Worst Of All, Not Wanting To Cope. You Saw Visions Of Yourself In A Straightjacket, And A Drain On The Family, Murdering Your Mother In Actuality, Killing The Edifice Of Love And Respect Built Up Over The Years In The Hearts Of Other People.

I Do Feel That Now And I Feel That This Development Of Recording Poems, Of Speaking Poems At Readings, Of Having Records Of Poets, I Think This Is A Wonderful Thing. I'm Very Excited By It. In A Sense, There's A Return, Isn't There, To The Old Role Of The Poet, Which Was To Speak To A Group Of People, To Come Across.

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.

I Felt Overstuffed And Dull And Disappointed, The Way I Always Do The Day After Christmas.

The Journey Over The Bridge Had Unnerved Me. The River Water Passed Me By Like An Untouched Drink. I Suspected That Even If My Mother And Brother Had Not Been There I Would Have Made No Move To Jump.

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.

Wear Your Heart On Your Skin In This Life.

Is Anyone Anywhere Happy?

I Didn't Know What I Was Doing In New York.

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

I'm Doped And Thick From My Last Sleeping Pill.

That Afternoon My Mother Had Brought Me The Roses. "save Them For My Funeral," I'd Said.

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.

If Only I Knew What I Wanted I Could Try To See About Getting It.

Perfection Is Terrible, It Cannot Have Children.

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.

Your Room Is Not Your Prison. You Are.

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If Only A Group Of People Were More Important To Me Than The Idea Of A Novel, I Might Begin A Novel.

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If You Expect Nothing From Anybody, You’re Never Disappointed.

At Twenty I Tried To Die And Get Back, Back, Back To You. I Thought Even The Bones Would Do.

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.

I Had Always Imagined Myself Hitching Up On To My Elbows On The Delivery Table After It Was All Over - Dead White, Of Course, With No Makeup And From The Awful Ordeal, But Smiling And Radiant, With My Hair Down To My Waist, And Reaching Out For My First Little Squirmy Child And Saying Its Name, Whatever It Was.

I Feel Terribly Vulnerable And 'not-myself' When I'm Not Writing.

I Said: I Must Remember This, Being Small.

Only I Wasn't Steering Anything, Not Even Myself.

My Thoughts Are Crabbed And Sallow, My Tears Like Vinegar, Or The Bitter Blinking Yellow Of An Acetic Star. Tonight The Caustic Wind, Love, Gossips Late And Soon, And I Wear The Wry-faced Pucker Of The Sour Lemon Moon. While Like An Early Summer Plum, Puny, Green, And Tart, Droops Upon Its Wizened Stem My Lean, Unripened Heart.

Nothing Stinks Like A Pile Of Unpublished Writing.

So I Began To Think Maybe It Was True That When You Were Married And Had Children It Was Like Being Brainwashed, And Afterward You Went About As Numb As A Slave In A Totalitarian State.

I Wish To Cry. Yet, I Laugh, And My Lipstick Leaves A Red Stain Like A Bloody Crescent Moon On Top Of The Beer Can

I Am Afraid Of Getting Married. Spare Me From Cooking Three Meals A Dayspare Me From The Relentless Cage Of Routine And Rote.

Is There No Way Out Of The Mind?

Sunday-the Doctor's Paradise! Doctors At Country Clubs, Doctors At The Seaside, Doctors With Mistresses, Doctors With Wives, Doctors In Church, Doctors In Yachts, Doctors Everywhere Resolutely Being People, Not Doctors.

I Find That In A Novel I Can Get More Of Life, Perhaps Not Such Intense Life, But Certainly More Of Life Than In Poetry.

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.

I Want To Kill Myself, To Escape From Responsiblity, To Crawl Abjectly Back Into The Womb.

Then I Thought, "no, I Broke It Myself. I Broke It On Purpose To Pay Myself Back For Being Such A Heel.

Once One Has Seen God, What Is The Remedy?

Intoxicated With Madness, I'm In Love With My Sadness

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

When You Are Insane, You Are Busy Being Insane-all The Time ... When I Was Crazy, That Was All I Was.

Winning Or Losing An Argument, Receiving An Acceptance Or Rejection, Is No Proof Of The Validity Or Value Of Personal Identity. One May Be Wrong, Mistaken, Or A Poor Craftsman, Or Just Ignorant - But This Is No Indication Of The True Worth Of One's Total Human Identity: Past, Present And Future!

The Body Is Amazingly Stubborn When It Comes To Sacrificing Itself To The Annihilating Directions Of The Mind.

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

Not Being Perfect Hurts.

Not Being Perfect

I Would Say Everything Should Be Able To Come Into A Poem, But I Can't Put Toothbrushes Into A Poem, I Really Can't!

Some Pale, Hueless Flicker Of Sensitivity Is In Me. God, Must I Lose It In Cooking Scrambled Eggs For A Man.

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

The One Thing I Was Good At Was Winning Scholarships And Prizes, And That Era Was Coming To An End.

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

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.

I Began To See Why Woman-haters Could Make Such Fools Of Women. Woman-haters Were Like Gods: Invulnerable And Chock Full Of Power. They Descended, And Then They Disappeared. You Could Never Catch One.

Don't Talk To Me About The World Needing Cheerful Stuff! What The Person Out Of Belsen Physical Or Psychological Wants Is Nobody Saying The Birdies Still Go Tweet-tweet, But The Full Knowledge That Somebody Else Has Been There And Knows The Worst, Just What It Is Like.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

And I Identify Too Closely With My Reading, With My Writing.

You Are A Dream; I Hope I Never Meet You.

A Fierce Brief Fusion Which Dreamers Call Real, And Realists, An Illusion; An Insight Like The Flight Of Birds.

I Do Not Love; I Do Not Love Anybody Except Myself. That Is A Rather Shocking Thing To Admit. I Have None Of The Selfless Love Of My Mother. I Have None Of The Plodding, Practical Love. . . . . I Am, To Be Blunt And Concise, In Love Only With Myself, My Puny Being With Its Small Inadequate Breasts And Meager, Thin Talents. I Am Capable Of Affection For Those Who Reflect My Own World.

If The Moon Smiled, She Would Resemble You. You Leave The Same Impression Of Something Beautiful, But Annihilating.

I Wonder About All The Roads Not Taken And Am Moved To Quote Frost...but Won't. It Is Sad To Be Able Only To Mouth Other Poets. I Want Someone To Mouth Me.

Like A Cat I Have Nine Times To Die.

So Much Working, Reading, Thinking, Living To Do. A Lifetime Is Not Long Enough. Nor Youth To Old Age Long Enough. Immortality And Permanence Be Damned. Sure I Want Them, But They Are Nonexistent, And Won't Matter When I Rot Underground. All I Want To Say Is: I Made The Best Of A Mediocre Job. It Was A Good Fight While It Lasted. And So Life Goes.

No, I Won't Try To Escape Myself By Losing Myself In Artificial Chatter 'did You Have A Nice Vacation?' 'oh, Yes, And You?' I'll Stay Here And Try To Pin That Loneliness Down.

I Am Too Pure For You Or Anyone.

Widow. The Word Consumes Itself.

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

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

Yes, There Is Joy, Fulfillment And Companionship But The Loneliness Of The Soul In Its Appalling Self-consciousness Is Horrible And Overpowering.

What Did My Arms Do Before They Held You?

The Moon, Too, Abases Her Subjects, But In The Daytime She Is Ridiculous. Your Dissatisfactions, On The Other Hand, Arrive Through The Mailslot With Loving Regularity, White And Blank, Expansive As Carbon Monoxide. No Day Is Safe From News Of You, Walking About In Africa Maybe, But Thinking Of Me.

You Have Lost All Delight In Life. Ahead Is A Large Array Of Blind Alleys. You Are Half-deliberately, Half-desperately Cutting Off Your Grip On Creative Life. You Are Becoming A Neuter Machine. You Cannot Love, Even If You Knew How To Begin To Love. Every Thought Is A Devil, A Hell-if You Could Do A Lot Of Things Over Again, Ah, How Differently You Would Do Them! You Want To Go Home, Back To The Womb. You Watch The World Bang Door After Door In Your Face, Numbly, Bitterly. You Have Forgotten The Secret You Knew, Once, Ah, Once, Of Being Joyous, Of Laughing, Of Opening Doors.

My Wanting To Write Books Annihilates The Original Root Impulse That Would Have Me Bravely And Blunderingly Working On Them.

And I Am Aware Of My Heart: It Opens And Closes Its Bowl Of Red Blooms Out Of Sheer Love Of Me.

I Think The Whole Emphasis In England, In Universities, On Practical Criticism (but Not That So Much As On Historical Criticism, Knowing What Period A Line Comes From) This Is Almost Paralysing. In America, In University, We Read - What? - T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Yeats, That Is Where We Began. Shakespeare Flaunted In The Background. I'm Not Sure I Agree With This, But I Think That' For The Young Poet, The Writing Poet, It Is Not Quite So Frightening To Go To University In America As It Is In England, For These Reasons.

Let Me Sit In A Flowerpot, The Spiders Won't Notice. My Heart Is A Stopped Geranium.

So Much Working, Reading, Thinking, Living To Do! A Lifetime Is Not Long Enough.

You've Only Got So Long To Live.

I Had Decided I Would Put Off The Novel Until I Had Gone To Europe And Had A Lover.

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.

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