Bang, Smash, Blast

              a found poem: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

He bit me and my cheek screamed blood.

He kissed all the words I knew

out of my red mouth

and then stamped on my lovely neck.

He was a hulk of a man—

so strong, like crashing steel—and I was his

favorite poem.

How I long to keep him.

It was such beautiful startling violence.

There Is No Light in Our Heads

              a found poem: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I believe the mind is nothing more than

a kind of Hell.

It is the offspring of rot and ego—a unique tomb

inside the brain. There is no waking

from it and so I am

a broken and empty girl—not dead, not gone—

but slowly sapping away; my spirit is burning

my nerves are ingrained with dirt.

I know the black waters of time will close above me

now and I don’t think I will be remembered.

But if I am, know that I was born to be

loved and mourned. I felt pink bliss.

I was something completely

and naively human.

At Home

              a found poem: Letters Home by Sylvia Plath

The birds and I—

alone in the long rippling grass

with a lovely virtuous wind

flocking around us—

felt such resonant joy and peace

as we began writing

the luminous stars into being.

What a beautiful world.