I am accused. I dream of massacres. I am a garden of black and red agonies. I drink them, Hating myself, hating and fearing. And now the world conceives Its end and runs toward it, arms held out in love.

I need the reality of other people, work, to fulfill myself. Must never become a mere mother and housewife.

There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.

I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly, as the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.

Let me not be weak and tell others how bleeding I am internally; how day by day it drips, and gathers, and congeals.

But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday―at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere―the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?

Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart?