Old poems

I’ve loved
with a love that is bigger
than me.
I’ve sighed sighs
that leave me breathless
for days.

I wrote thousands
Upon thousands of
dedicated words
That fell into hands,
Empty hands that
never held me
Or hands that
Gripped too tightly
and struck me

I read old poems
With pitiful eyes
My own hands
so full
Of memories
and regrets.

The heat has gone to my head, mother. I indulge, I overindulge. There is nothing delicate about it. I am being compulsive, I depress myself. I hate need but I need to feel needed. I need to feel indispensable. Utterly, explicitly, and ferociously indispensable.
Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Aurelia Plath featured in Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963
(via violentwavesofemotion)