“My world falls apart, crumbles, “The center cannot hold.” There is no integrating force, only the naked fear, the urge of self-preservation. I am afraid. I am not solid, but hollow. I feel behind my eyes a numb, paralyzed cavern, a pit of hell, a mimicking nothingness. I never thought. I never wrote, I never suffered. I want to kill myself, to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb. I do not know who I am, where I am going—and I am the one who has to decide the answers to these hideous questions. I long for a noble escape from freedom—I am weak, tired, in revolt from the strong constructive humanitarian faith which presupposes a healthy, active intellect and will. There is nowhere to go … “–Sylvia Plath, journal, November 3, 1952

Bro/ken 

              Slipping away

Problems past

Robbed of youth

Bro/ken

              Searching

Finding nothing

I’m nowhere

Bro/ken

              Seeing

I’m blind

Running out of time

Bro/ken

             Sinking

Inside of me

I’m lost.

            

© 2010 Jennifer L. Brooks

People all around

Still so lonesome in a crowd,

Invisible me.

© 2011 Jennifer L. Brooks