Letter

A Letter to Sylvia Plath

By the roots of my hair, some God got hold of me,
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
- Sylvia Plath (The Hanging Man)

Dear Sylvia,
On a wintry evening, in December, listening to Liszt's Liebestraume, I would lose myself in your endless thoughts, pouring over the metaphors I can never fathom, imagining about a life so distant from my own. At night, when my heart would be wrecked by the fleeting moments, I would look at my anti-depressants, thinking of you, how you let it all consume you whole.

I can only read about you, the countless articles about a depressed poet. A wife. A mother. But isn't it all just a vague image of you? It's what they decided to see of you. Merely a part of you. So yes, I would never get to know the whole of you.

When I first read Lady Lazarus, it was more of a pretentious gesture. The second time I read it, it was through a fresh perspective, "Oh, she is talking about her suicidal intentions". The third time was after I was unsuccessful, when I realised that you embody what you write. "Dying is an art, like everything else." I read this, and I knew that it's true and it takes courage to say it out loud, so that they can hear it clearly and not mock us for the tragedies we harbour inside us.

Your art tells me stories untold, of voices never paid heed to, of the love which went unnoticed. When the moon abandons me too and the sky prepares to weep, I wonder if you felt like me, trying to figure your way out of the darkest abyss and never finding the saviour. You gave up, perhaps because you had nothing to live for. But what pains me the most is that your tragic end is glorified and not the days you managed to stay put. Those days, or months, or years, reflected in your art is warmth, Sylvia. A warmth so unlike others, a purpose to live for, a light in that dark abyss. Laments of a lonely bird cannot bring you back for it knows how you suffered through and through, but can only sing of you, like a lover in disguise.

As dawn unfolds by the window, the sunlight shall illuminate your poetry and no more shall you remain the one who was lost. You shall be known forever as the one who was found.

Yours sincerely
Bipasha