The Devil of the Stairs

She is a tragedy and a hero:
the mother abandoning
etched through to my blood
and who says she's not the reason I leak

Sometimes things are all too bleak.
For simplicity is as simplicity
does not do.
I wonder what it is like to be you.

Sylvia, did it hurt to write?
Poetry keeps me up at night.
Do I terrify?—
I think I simply wish to die.

Sometimes it is enough only to ask why.
They hurl the world at me, and I
flinch like I've forgotten to move or how to try.
My secret, dear Sylvia, is I want to be you.

"I used to be like you but soon you will be like me."
It was too far for me, you see
She was a hero, and a tragedy.
I guess it simply wasn't meant to be.

At a London graveyard or from the bottom of your heart, you lie.
With honesty and a heart at ease you despise
The simple kind of picked-off wounds, rehealing and infested
with the worms you promised you had left us

Sylvia, I am a little girl with your heart
I daresay I sing with a different rue:
Ophelia and I, I wanted to be you
But the villagers are dancing on you and crying, "Hughes, Hughes."

I never obtained the freedom that tore you apart.
Secrets make themselves sought and reviled:
Paradox of all, an unheard of depression is never shy
Oh, Sylvia, I only wanted to die.

Why does life have to be such a lie?
I suppose that's been written a thousand times.
Blood is connective like my noose or your gas
and poetry is our greatest mask

I have far too many questions to ask.
Ophelia says I should be happy for you.
Is it wrong to wish I was dead too?
Oh, darling, I'm through, I'm through.