Sylvia Plath on love, sex and madness

First, I want you to read this:

A mad girl’s love song / Sylvia Plath

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

Then, I want you to read Maria Popova’s Sylvia Plath: an addict of experience, especially this bit:

Sex—or rather the constraints and repressions surrounding it—played a central role in Plath’s creative and psychological development. … she hated boys who could express themselves sexually while she had no choice but to ‘drag’ herself from one date to the next in ‘soggy desire.’

(“Soggy desire.” Fuck. Always a poet, right?)

Then, move on to Andrew Wilson’s Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted, from which the quote above comes…

Finally:

ORDERS: Experience. That is all.