I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

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.)

-Plath

” I-65 North. Pushing 95, driving home from Lake Martin where she was staying with her boyfriend. He had just graduated college. Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” blaring from the speakers and I can’t think of a more appropriate song. Not because she was Catholic, she wasn’t, and not because her name was Virginia, it wasn’t, but because she was good. And she died far, far too young. ”

—Excerpt from some experimental prose I’m working on…much more is written but I don’t like it. Once it’s edited, if it’s edited, I’ll post.

Sanctuary.

My father laughs to my right, 

something funny, apparently, between my sister and he.

My mother sits to my left, prim and pretty, upright

absorbing the Easter message that is lost on me.

Invisible, I let the offering plate pass from Left to Right

without raising a hand or touching its gold,

I look straight ahead.

My Left and Right and the people in this room 

hearing the “word of God,”

how little they really know.

The tears that fog my glasses and beg to reach my cheeks

are written off as religious tears, moved by Reverend Larroux

but

They don’t know these wretched tears 

have nothing to do with the Savior, 

nothing to do with being consumed by elation, 

nothing to do with Easter.

       My tears are idolatry, unwelcome in a place like this.

They don’t know that

less than 72 hours ago, 

you put your big hands on each of my little shoulders

and forced them back. Oh you, and your little lessons-

teaching me, a toddler, how to walk, talk, stand.

You can make accursed plans, plans without me in them,

You can go and be and live and laugh

cold and unaffected

but,

me, I woke up crying. 

I’ve always been a little “weak,” needing some “bucking up.” 

I’ve mourned a loss like this before, 

I’ve written the cathartic poetry, 

I know my tears will freeze one day,

to hardness I will return.

On my mother’s scale of one to head-in-the-oven, 

I gave myself a six,

but now, here, in this supposed sanctuary, 

hearing of Jesus and whips and scoffs

maybe I’m more than a six…because I had no idea.

The sermon monotonous, memorized messages-

a faint buzzing in the screaming of my brain

I look forward while everyone else is touched by the sacred words-

God, they have no idea!

They can’t know the daggered pain, 

stabbing my little-girl heart-

over and over, every beat, the cruel 

knife of university heartbreak 

twists-

they really have no idea.

So He died to save my life, but what a life is this?

He suffered so I may be free but what shackled hell is this?

Hell on a Sunday, where my tears still fall, 

hell in my head and hell in my heart, 

Christ, they have no idea.

-amw

I have hated the words, and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right

Write hard and clear about what hurts.