I AM SORRY --- I AM DIFFERENT NOW

Pictures from Easter kegg hunt and the beautiful ladies who were in the play with me.

EVERYBODY'S FREE TO WEAR SUNSCREEN

HISTORY BOOKS FORGOT ABOUT US AND THE BIBLE DIDNT MENTION US - NOT EVEN ONCE

LADY LAZARUS

Somebody quoted the last three lines from "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath, as a comment on my red hair. They asked me if I was trying to be like her. Now, I'm not sure if the question means if I want to be like Lady Lazarus or if I want to be like Plath. I guess I just want to answer because in a couple of days I got a few Plath comments.
I'm not "trying" to be like anything or like anyone. My hair color, in particular, does not have anything to do with any literary figure ... or anyone else for that matter. I just happen to like red hair. I only had it brown for some months because I dyed it so before coming to Mount Holyoke to give a serious appearence to my students.
I love the poem "Lady Lazarus" and I love Sylvia Plath, but I don't read them anymore. Apparently, and according to my poetry professor, the Plath influence is very strong in my writing, but I guess I can't help it.
As I said, I'm not trying to be anything or anyone... although maybe it happens unconciously. I don't even know who are my favorite writers anymore or why. My mind is really numb.

ART TO CHANGE THE WORLD

Spring at last. Chilly wind, but sun and no blizzards. The end of the semester, the end of the degree, approach fast. In two weeks there's the play. On April 27th we (Amnesty International) are organizing an artshow-concert for Darfur. Yesterday I talked with my poetry professor about the authors that influenced our style and about our addiction to medicines. How can stereotypes be true and a lie at the same time? Do you really have to go through hell to create art?
Time goes away (if we assume that time exist, that is), and in theory we grow up, or we grow old. But do we? Have things changed so much from when we were 10 or even 5? Are our feelings more complex or are they the same, but expressed with bigger words?
How much do we learn?

ANSWERS

According to a silly test I found on the Internet this is me:

Emo Kid

You are 28% Rational, 14% Extroverted, 42% Brutal, and 42% Arrogant.
You are the Emo Kid, best described as a quiet pussy! You tend to be an intuitive rather than a logical thinker, meaning you rely more on your feelings than your thoughts. Not only that, but you are introverted, gentle, and rather humble. You embody all the traits of the perfect emo kid. You are a push-over, an emotional thinker, gentle to the extent of absurdity, and so humble that it even makes Jesus puke. (And Jesus almost never pukes, being immortal and not requiring an act of puke to dispell toxins from his corporeal manifestation.) If you write poetry, you no doubt write angsty, syrupy lines about depression, sadness, and other such redundant states of emo-being that go something like this:
life is a spike / upon which i have impaled mysefl / fuck you dad
So, your personality is defective because you are too gentle, rather underconfident in yourself, decidely lacking in any rational thought, and also a bit too inhibited. Plus, your poetry really upsets your father.
I probably made you cry, didn't I? Fucking Emo Kid.
To put it less negatively:
1. You are more INTUITIVE than rational.
2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.
3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.
4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

SMASH

i cant sleep
there is silence and it is snowing outside. another winter storm that lasts forever and keeps me inside.
i check my email one hundred times every day and see no new message and feel abandoned but cant bring myself to write to anyone.
i am empty and unable to sleep or do anything else. the ceiling is very uninteresting. i dont want to stare at the ceiling all night long. i cant close my eyes and pretend to sleep if sleep doesnt come because them questions come.
what is broken inside me and how can it be fixed? i want to smash myself as when you smash a broken TV and hope that it works or at least you release some anger. i want to smash myself and dont know how.
what is broken? where? why? can someone take it out? out out out out of me i hate this i hate it not me it driving me insane i hate it and i dont understand why i should be broken for the rest of my life if i didnt do it

A TERRIBLE SADNESS

TINY SPY

Imagine that I
exist right now
in front of you
that I can speak
Imagine me
my eyes unfold
the ugliness of life as the man
whom I will call father
moves into you and you
laugh - absurd - not seeing
me or what I will become
when mother gives me birth
and I learn to speak and point out.
Imagine I have those freckles
you bite off - spelling
your crimes so my mother
can cry and the man - he -
can look shameful -
run out.
Imagine you bring me
such disgrace that I wake up
inside a liquid belly
punching my way out.
My wormy fingers
try to choke you -
you're away
covered by books and lullabies.
Imagine me by your side
killing you in small pieces -
finger by finger -
until some moaning starts
and I am uncertain
not knowing what are you
imagining - me - or my father's rotten heart.

OUT OF PLACE, OUT OF SPACE

Eleven p.m. Saturday night... I am stuck in my horrible room. Tonight we have to change the hour. I don't about the rest of the world, but apparently, we have to do it in the US because the government wants to save electricity. So we change the time earlier this year.

March and spring is not here... Everything is covered in snow yet. I grow worse daily. It is sad to own it, but more and more I feel summed up in a movie line: "Every day of my life is a little worse than the day before. So every day that you see me, that's the worst day of my life."

So is this particular Saturday the worst day of my life? I don't know... Maybe yes. And nothing has really happened. But...

My doctors always ask if I have friends and I think it strange and funny and answer Yes automatically. But no, no, no, I don't have friends. Or if I have friends, how many? 5? (and I mean 5 friends in all and every country, in total). People find me alienating and threatening. And most of the time I don't mind... I enjoy being left alone. But now... I don't know what is happening...

I have absolutely no-one here. Sometimes I feel like locking myself in the bathroom just to avoid people looking at me. Because the bathroom is safer than other places. But it is not completely safe, because people come and go and make noise and they can hear me and know that there is someone there... and men can also come and I hate it. I shouldn't, but I feel like male visitors are a threat, like they are invading my safe space, and I feel an immediate hostility towards them, because I fear that they will harm me.

I can't stop thinking of how everyone means to hurt me or how they act not even noticing me... not looking in my direction. I observe, for example, the group of the other TAs (teaching assistants, like me), who stick together, and make plans together without me and all that... they are smart enough, but none of them is exceptional or really interesting or fascinating. Their conversations are always more or less the same. The plans are always the same. The routines the same. Is it that what I am missing?

I am so tired of being me... of being so proud, so pompous, so pedantic, so critical, so cynical, so insecure. I am so sick of this anglophilia, of this not belonging anywhere. Where is my place in this stupid world? What is my home? Do I have a home? I NEED TO BELONG SOMEWHERE. I will always be a Russian girl in Spain, and a Spanish girl in Russia. And everywhere else I will be a mix-up. Why? Why? Why? I want roots. I want to belong.

I always feel out of place and out space wherever I am... and everyday that goes by it gets worse. Not even the medicines can make forget that.

ARE WE HAPPY YET?

BODIES BY THE OVEN

Daddy dear - will take my wooden box
in his steel arms
Another childless woman - there -
crying for him - for him -
his poor poetic soul - his crazy wives

At first the dream is only the usual sounds
then I wake up - in less than a minute I'll be dead
My mother's eyes are tight -
gone - and going too
although I know it was not my fate to die

Three years-old and destined to magic
but Mom cannot hear and I cannot move -
locked in the drunk embrace of a corpse who never loved me enough
not to live - not to kill -
because me - I don't count

My half-sister and half-brother will be there
in black - with Sunday faces
alive although their mother also died
They stayed and stay
just like me - not destined to cross

Who will find out?
Why didn't Daddy come to make love to Mom?
Instead he made her wail and cry
and take the mattress to the kitchen
and open the gas

She is gray and alone -
it's the last time I will see her
I arrange my body in her arms
kiss her forehead and wipe her tears with my tongue.
Less than a minute? Maybe. I am gone.

AM I STILL BREATHING?

ASSIA

As usual, when in a bad state, I cut my hair, somehow trying to get rid of all the pain, of all the negative emotions. I look at myself in the mirror and what do I see now?
No longer Sylvia Plath. I don't resemble her anymore, without my long waves. Now I am more like Assia Wevill. I just realized.
Yesterday I found a movie with Meryl Streep about Mt. Holyoke students. About "uncommon women". It shows what this institution is really teaching, what is really going on here. And it portrays perfectly one of my main fears, that of not becoming "amazing"... What if I remain an Assia, never a Sylvia? What if I don't get even that far?
Walls banging with my neighbours and their girlfriends celebrating St.Valentine's week. Of course, I am envious and I feel so down I've been checking flights to Italy for spring break... but I can't afford them. And that's how materialism killed the romantics.
They say a blizzard is coming tonight, and we'll be snowed in. Everyone is afraid-excited-expectant. What will it be like tomorrow? At least, no class. Maybe lots of pictures...
Aagghhh... I should ask my neighbours to keep it quiet. This is depressing. I really hate St. Valentine, specially when I do have a boyfriend with whom I would love to spend it, but we are so far away...
It is snowing... The winter snow is here.

I WANT TO BE INNOCENT AGAIN