The Resurrection of Sylvia Plath
No
breakfast tray. I watch
as all the nurses scurry from room
to room with trays of spam and eggs.
Hot cereal. Coffee and juice. There are
no last meals here, no one asks what
your final request might be. The first rule
at the asylum is:
THEY ALWAYS LIE TO YOU.
There is no second rule. The doctor
says it is like going to sleep. Go
back to the first rule. I try to
hide. There is nowhere to
go. I shuffle to the most secluded
corner of the asylum, curl into
the fetal position with a blanket
over my head. I want to
disappear. They want me to
vanish. Only angels can take me
the way I need to go. The doctor
comes. She is no angel. She told
me a long time ago she would be
the one to let me know before
it happens. She says,
“I’m letting you know.”
It is too late. There is a climb
into the bowels of the building.
A green door opens. A woman, tall,
frightening, masked, is at the head of the table
behind the machine. A mattress. Taut
sheets. Masked attendants. Armed robbers.
I climb onto the table. Leather straps
click into place, holding
you down. Salve on my temples,
electrodes into place, rubber
stick clasped between the teeth.
A switch, thrown.
Darkness erased me.
A Letter To Mummy, 24 February 1956
England has me on a such a tight tether
Dear mother, I think it might be the weather
To flick on the gas costs me a shilling
But the heat is only on one side;
on the other side it is damned chilling.
Yet I would rather be here than the United States
where they pack women into cramped little crates
Of course the sickbays here are absurd
I go in with the flu, come out like a turd.
This illness coincides with my monthly stain
I need respite from my body, especially my brain.
Letters, letters, letters from me to you
Of course nothing we write is absolutely true
My nose is oozing and red and I have trouble
arising from bed. I need you to cook me some broth
stuff my tattered nostrils with cloth.
I need a man to love me well
Perhaps some tall devil will deliver me to hell.
Ah, my head is too much a sewer.
My soul my tainted thoughts do skewer.
Dear mother, I'd rather be red than dead
dead than bled, waking up with a Ted
in my bed, she said, she said, I'll have
to bid my adieu's, adieu's, marry a dude
named Ted Hughes, enough of these words,
this letter is through, from me to you, adieu, adieu.
“When I Say I Must Write - - - -” 25 Jan. 1956
I mean nothing else matters. Publishing be damned, I’ll write
anyway. It is the horror of the blank
page that frightens me most. My inner life is nothing
but fragments, shards of glass, funhouse mirrors, I’ll tell
you in a letter what I want
you to hear, what I wish were the facts. The facts. How
different than truth, truth is in the mouth of the teller, the mind
of the beholder, truth is flesh. Facts are stone. Alas, I am
split between what is and what I say, what I want and what
I pray. My present is unwrapped, soiled by yesterday’s
fierce compression, by tomorrow’s terrors. I slip
into the present like it was a dirty dress, ripped, ravaged, stained.
It does not fit me well, I spill out like light, naked skin
strip-teasing me to the world, my nipple, a poem, the scars
on my thighs, private hair, the crack, a short story, my smile,
my mind. You want this piece, he wants that one, she wants
another, I barely want any of it, but all of it is not enough.
I write it , I tell it, I shape it, I shift it. This is my story, my truth,
my flesh. My flesh is the truth, what I write is stone.
Thinking Of You
I am wet with myself,
walk masked and made up, chat down
for tea. England fog obscures the leaves
dwelling at the bottom of my cup, no fortunes to be
read here. There is such an urgency to finish
things. I am quickly
speeding into destiny. We tarry so
briefly with those we love, those who
love us depart in barbed carriages tugged by night
coloured horses with whip flayed backs. Oh my! I meant
this to be a cheerful letter, coming so close
to Christmas too. I think I might travel
to Paris, stand on a cold, snowy corner with the gift you gave
me in my hands. I want to open it on that Day, find you inside.
Outside The Matisse Cathedral
Outside the nunnery I never
dreamed anyone might cast the gate
ajar, not for me. Men with eyes of brick brace
nunneries with stone walls about
them, keep the Sisters in, locked away -- only the
eyes of Sweet Jesus caress them when they drop
their black cloaks, kneel naked by simple cots, pray
for faith with slow hands. That cathedral -- small, pure, clean
cut, white, shut tight from the likes of me. My face tight
against the barred gate, sobbing relentlessly in hopeless
desire when her voice broke over me. "Ne pleurez plus,
entrez," and the Mother Superior let me in. Touched by her,
sun spilling over solid stone walls I fell to my knees
the heart of Christ beating my eyes with light. Had I
stayed within these walls the rest of my life
it all might have been different. Forget
poetry. Even stone would sing my song.
How I Come
Listen to my voice: angry, bitter, dark, gravel,
compressed. Difficult to believe I once went
to church, now I launch my poetry like a
doddering grey spews sputum. Not the husband,
the father, the mother, nay, the children either, it was
the poison arrows fired by the world within. No one
helped me die. I asked for help, where are
my Gods now? All
Lords of mirrors, the God we see is the God
we are. I shall draw my bath, drop myself
into the steaming broth, thrash madly
until the stains of my coming drop through
ceilings, floors, rugs, you will not walk
a step without treading on me. I have not
always been like this. Upon a time once
a young woman awaiting laughter, dance, white
wine. Then when I was already wounded
he came with another woman, took me
aside, ripped off my earring, wrenched the clip
from my hair. I bit him on the cheek, drew
his blood, that is why we married. There is
more to tell, his truth, my truth, God's
truth. Nothing holds up under
intense scrutiny. Death has
opened my eyes, now you desire me. I come
cloaked in language, the last betrayal.
I Gave Him The Phone
I felt it coming.
She was thick
with herself, she had more than
enough to give. It was how she
disguised her thefts. Hidden beneath
long flowing coat and costume men
smelled her moisture, her earthen
desire. When she raised her silk
nightgown, dropped it over my
husband like a shroud, all his breaths
were filled with her scent. I felt
it coming. He went to her in
secret, penetrated her with his
poetry. One day I came
home early from shopping. The phone
was ringing. He fell
down the steps trying to
answer its insistent ring. I arrived
first. When I spoke
she answered. She lowered
her voice, tried to sound
like a man. She asked
for my husband. I did not
give him to her; I gave him
the phone. She took him.
Through the receiver, through
the tiny holes, sucked him in
like he was dusty straw. I felt
it coming. I gathered up
the children, drove and drove
and drove my car from one
emptiness to the next. I felt
it coming but it was him
who I gave my heart to,
him who I trusted, him
who killed me. Not her.
My Song
This is my fire. Everything ends
here. This is where the rubbish
burns. Page by page I throw in
this love, this story that will never
have become written. Not ink, not
words, but fire, smoke, ashes blow
in the ill wind. No one will read, no
one will reap fortune, instead of his
birthday present I give you fire
and smoke. Look, look, look mother
this is the book I wrote for Ted, look
these are the letters you wrote to
me, these are the rough drafts, the scum
from the desk of my husband who
is with her. This is my fire, the wind
lifts the ashes into the sky, whirling
swirling, I grasp hold of my dress, kick
my legs up and dance, dance, dance, listen
to the wind scream. This is my fire.
This is my song.
23 Fitzroy Road
(I)
On Fitzroy Road a shadow stands
at the window. Neighbors watch.
They think it is a woman they
know. Waiting for her true
love dressed in black costume.
Death comes dressed in colours,
a wool of night scrawled about
his neck. A noose. A muffler
to quiet a wife, a shadow, a stark
grimace. At the window a shadow
within shadow, within shadow, even
tempered. As light fades the shadow
stands longer, yet longer. The fingers
cold, wrapped in shawl, dead cold.
Ice on the glass.