Now I Am Silent, Hate Up To

I Didn’t Want My Picture Taken Because I Was Going To Cry. I Didn’t Know Why I Was Going To Cry, But I Knew That If Anybody Spoke To Me Or Looked At Me Too Closely The Tears Would Fly Out Of My Eyes And The Sobs Would Fly Out Of My Throat And I’d Cry For A Week. I Could Feel The Tears Brimming And Sloshing In Me Like Water In A Glass That Is Unsteady And Too Full.

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.

The Door Of The Novel, Like The Door Of The Poem, Also Shuts. But Not So Fast, Nor With Such Manic, Unanswerable Finality.

I Buried My Head Under The Darkness Of The Pillow And Pretended It Was Night. I Couldn't See The Point Of Getting Up. I Had Nothing To Look Forward To.

All The Heat And Fear Had Purged Itself. I Felt Surprisingly At Peace. The Bell Jar Hung Suspended A Few Feet Above My Head. I Was Open To The Circulating Air.