Erin Donaldson’s Reviews > Love, Sivvy: A Novel Inspired by the Life, Letters, and Diaries of Young Sylvia Plath > Status Update

“I hope none of you plan to be a writers. Women writers are frequently unhappy.”

He’s our creative writing professor. He teaches only women. Why the hell would he say something like that?

God, it must be nice to be a man. To have so many options ( and opinions). To be given an opportunity to achieve literary greatness. To fulfill artistic ambitions, judgment free.

To be taken seriously.

It feels like I was some
Industrious specimen,
Rushing around in my
clockwork-like existence
accomplishing things,
marking off tasks,
Enjoying myself in a way
I didn’t have to think about,

And suddenly someone’s lifted
the bell jar
From around me and
The clock is gone and
I flail in an aimless reality
Without any kind of purpose.

For the first time in my life,
I find myself with
Days and days
I’m wide open freedom.
I thought it would be refreshing.
It’s terrifying.

It almost makes me sick
how much wealth there is
in the world for a select few,
while the rest of us struggle
for a living

Time, you are the worst of all teases.
Slow, I say, and you speed.
Speed, I say, and you go slow.
I cannot seem to master you.