Me And Sylvia
How many women can you fit in a bell jar?
The moon has nothing to be sad about, Sylvia Plath wrote in a poem about a beautiful woman. Laying dead. Wearing a smile of accomplishment as her bare feet seemed to say we’ve come so far but it is over now. Two children curled beside her. An empty pitcher, she called her.
The Edge. Is what she called it. And then stepped over it.
Six days later, she carried milk and bread up the stairs where her babies lay sleeping. Crept downstairs and stuffed wet towels in the cracks around her kitchen door and laid her head in the oven until her pitcher was empty.
I’m standing at the window, watching wind dance with the weeping birch. Fluttering arms. Dipping, rising, twirling like pretty ladies in a Jane Austen novel dancing with Mr. Darcy while he stands behind me. Angry.
Yelling I don’t know what your problem is and I don’t need to turn around to see his face red with anger so I don’t. But I think to myself. I know what my problem is. Mostly? It’s that he’s no Mr. Darcy, no kind or gentle man. But why blow on embers, I think, if you don’t want to get burned.
Keeping lips to myself, I reach up. Fling open the window.
Feel the wind on my face, in my hair because why shouldn’t I? Want. Wind or maybe hands to…
