“I    shut  my eyes  and all   the  world  drops dead.

I lift my lids, and all is born again.”

Before I read these opening lines of Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song,” I never overanalyzed the words of anyone besides the lyrically brilliant Stephani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. It was as if I was experiencing the opening scene in the “Marry the Night” video again and there is only the sound of rain hitting the roof of her car for a brief second after all the chaos and breakdown witnessed in her apartment before the instrumental begins creating audio and visual bliss. I remember sitting in my ninth grade English class in dickie shorts I never grew into; it must’ve been no later than ten A.M and my stomach was probably rumbling and tumbling due to a diet of only three hours of sleep, coffee, anxiety, and despair. I was aware of the rumor that consuming coffee at an early age stuns your growth but brewing it every morning garnered praise from my father. And although I hated him, his praise fed my young soul more than his empty promises did. Looking back, it must’ve been divine intervention; coming at the peak of my parents’ separation, my budding pubescent insecurities, and my fascination with being actively depressed. And by that age closing my eyes and letting the world die was a common occurrence.

To escape my father’s wrath, I closed my eyes and let the world die, to escape my mother’s tears, I closed my eyes and let the world die, and to escape the torment of the children around me, I closed my eyes and let the world die. If only it stayed dead. As I grew older, and the depression really settled in, I developed my own sphere of existence; an escape from the fantastical world of parenteral arguments, my father’s never-ending battle with addiction and later incarceration, and my mother’s over-looming fear of being deported. And unfortunately for me, Dr. Suess forgot to cover any topics besides environmentalism, optimism, with a dash of 1940s anti-Asian racism.

Throughout my academic career, my friends and irrelevant twats would describe me as opinionated, talkative, and annoying; but my teachers called me brilliantly promising. So, I guess it balanced itself out. Prior to that year, I had never considered capturing the complexities of my past experiences and emotions into anything beyond my mind. All I knew was that I sought a form of escape that didn’t leave any scars, so I immersed myself in schoolwork and hyper fixated on music I could build my personality around. But with every passing school year, it seemed as though every English teacher thrived on the thought of forcing their students to delve deep inside themselves and speak from the little voices within our underdeveloped minds, scour our past experiences to pour them onto an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper within eight hundred words and I was hesitant to say the least. Firstly, eight hundred words for my life st01y is criminal and secondly for free is crazy because I doubt the Freedom Writers were handsomely compensated for their trauma and if any of my teachers got rich off my words, I expect a cut.

Nonetheless I pondered on how I was going to capture my complex relationship with my father like Sylvia did in “Daddy” or my battle with suicidal thoughts like she did in “Lady Lazarus”, it was though I didn’t need a little voice when I shared one with Sylvia Plath. And I found myself unconsciously replaying Lady Gaga’s monologue from the “Marry the Night” music video, in which she said:

“When I look back on my life, it’s not that I don’t want to see things exactly as they happened,

It’s just that I prefer to remember them in an artistic way.

And truthfully the lie of it all is much more honest because

I invented it.”

And as it lingered in my mind, I realized if I added a more idealized spin to my writing it would give me the opportunity to write about my life while twisting it into a fantastical end akin to Pans Labyrinth minus the Spanish civil war and bloodshed just double the sadness. A way to sprinkle in true events while glossing over the parts that cause my body to be in a constant fight or flight response. But with every dissection of “Mad Girl’s Love Song” I found myself resonating with Sylvia more and more. Every reading offered a deeper understanding of my favorite poet and her writing style. Reading the poem of a young woman scarred by love; driven into delusion and sadness spoke to me in a way I couldn’t explain. It was as if Sylvia had whispered into my young heart and cradled it with a bittersweet tenderness. I, myself had never felt love besides my parents, but by then my heart was scarred by my father’s actions and my mother’s misdirected anger. I was enamored and complexed, forced to question why I felt the need to suppress the little voice within my writing with fictious embellishments.

I pondered how it was easy for Sylvia to express such beautifully twisted and sad concepts in her work and how she managed to overcome her depression, but she hadn’t; she ended her life in 1963. And I thought that would be my end as well, because, as Sylvia once said, “I talk to God, but the sky is empty.” And with every unanswered prayer, I began to descend into my own version of madness, into an emotionless state of desire, although I didn’t know what I longed for. My main fixation became why Sylvia wrote the way she did and why I felt that I couldn’t without being forcibly medicated. Then, like the bus in Final Destination that runs over the cheerleader, another Sylvia quote came out of nowhere and scattered my blood all over my nonexistent lover:

“I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still.”

And it was then that my tiny little stubborn mind realized that all my English teachers were the ones with the higher education, longer life experiences and student loan debt for a poorly funded career but had been onto something.

I questioned whether my reliance on over-embellishment in my writing ever helped me address any underlying anxieties and aspirations. I was curious what this little voice everyone was talking about had to say. That’s when I came to the harrowing realization that I’d misinterpreted Gaga. What I mistook as her refinishing the awful painting that was her past to resemble the Mona Lisa for; was the acceptance of her past while utilizing the artform of her choice to convey her story, no matter how difficult, ugly, or painful it was. Whether it be her sexual assault, abortion, and being dropped from her record label within “Marry the Night” alone to her battle with alcoholism in “Rain on me”, she had a little voice within her that would not sit still. And I realized that’s what captivated me about Sylvia; she utilized her writing to articulate her emotions and life, no matter how difficult it had been. Now, my writing at the time was nowhere comparable to them, and it may not be today, but I wanted to give it try and the little songbird I was suppressing within was ready to sing for once.

Upon this revelation of sorts, I was given the opportunity to simply close my eyes and let my anxieties run wild on page Little House on Prairie style, when I was given the prompt of “Where do you see yourself in the future? ” or something akin to that. And at first, I had no idea how I was going to convey my resentment towards adulthood due to a result of my childhood experiences in an upbeat and optimistic way. I don’t remember which English teacher gave the prompt because midway into the first semester my original teacher decided he didn’t want to be Jennifer Garner in Freedom Writers and switched classes with another one. And although my exact words are lost to time, I remember how liberating it felt to throw caution to the wind, write freely, and worry if my name would pop up on my guidance counselor’s list of students most likely to graduate with an obituary afterward. I wrote about my fear of the adulthood and how my father was a good reason to let the surname die with me while also referencing Sylvia because while battling her own woes, she took the time to predict my teenage angst and encase it in a keychain when she said, “What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age. “

And at the end of all that character development, nothing mattered. I got my grade and kept it pushing; there was no big reward, no mandatory sessions with a professional, nor a grand overcoming of my depression. It just lingers in my closet, ready for me when I want to cuddle. But I gained a small voice, one that was crippled with anxiety and ready for the casket but with fifty pounds of ass and a great sense of humor. One that I convinced myself had no place in my writing or no academic merit. Unfortunately, that little voice has become persistent; any writing prompt will have that little songbird yapping. But when it’s all written and graded it’s always comforting to know that I do have an outlet for the inner working of my mind and if I ever lose the ability to articulate my emotions in writing, there’s always an oven downstairs. Ask Sylvia. Now at an age I never thought I’d make it to and reflecting on my academic career, I admit that I was reluctant to acknowledge the downhearted aspects of the little voice within my mind and past for no reason other than not being offered a book deal afterward. But through the musical stylings of Lady Gaga and Sylvia Plath’s writings I was given a chance to confront myself and become more honest and humorous in my own writing. To acknowledge the flaws of my parents and allow the Brightside to shine through once all the childhood trauma is forcibly dumped onto an innocent English teacher’s writing assignment. And as I develop into my own version of the dark and brooding writer, all I can say is, as the morbidly brilliant Sylvia Plath once wrote,

Works Cited

Gaga, Lady. “Lady Gaga -Marry the Night (Official Music Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 2 Dec. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=cggNqDAtJYU. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Plath, Sylvia. “Mad Girl’s Love Song: A Villanelle.” Mademoiselle August Issue, 1953. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

—. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Anchor Books, 2013.

Wh-When I was starting to talk, starting to communicate, my parents quickly noticed that there was a problem.

I couldn’t get out what I needed to say without the words being caught up in my throat or tripping over my tongue. Anything I had said was damn near incoherent; anything I had said was damn near embarrassing. The repetitions, prolongations, and blocks made it hard for me to say what needed to be said.

Speaking to my immediate family wasn’t an issue, they’d pieced together what I was trying to say and completed my own sentences for me, it was speaking to anyone other than them that really tested my patience. So, I didn’t talk to anyone other than the people in my home. As a matter of fact- I had refused even to acknowledge people that I didn’t wake up every day to.

My first friend was hard to remember, I figured that she would’ve had bright blue eyes, or maybe he would’ve had a headful of dark hair, but my memory wasn’t serving me like how I had wanted it to, and for the longest time, I had always wondered who my first friend was and how did I make that happen. Surely, nobody came up to me willingly striking up a conversation and wanting to be friends. I’ve never had a problem getting what I wanted, things were always handed to me, but the one thing I couldn’t buy off the shelves from our local supermarket and the one thing my parents couldn’t offer me on a golden platter was a friend.

A paper plate was my first fri-friend.

A paper plate, The Paper Plate, couldn’t correct me like how the other young kids my age were able to; The Paper Plate didn’t mock, tease, or laugh when I needed a second, just a second, to correct my pronunciation of an easy word. Anybody else wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between a paper plate and The Paper Plate, but I wasn’t just anybody else and this wasn’t just a paper plate.

I don’t think I ever named The Paper Plate, at least if I did, it was probably a name I had whispered to myself, a name that was s-so easy and so simple to say. Even with no name, I took The Paper Plate everywhere I had gone; The Paper Plate played alongside with me, ate with me, slept with me, laughed with me, and probably even cried with me. I was so emotionally attached to The Paper Plate, I genuinely thought of The Paper Plate as a sentient-being. And even with all the emotional connections and strings that a human being could have to an inanimate object, it still hadn’t satisfied me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was pleased with The Paper Plate for a very long time, but if there’s anything about me that I’ve always struggled with- besides my speech-it was the fact that nothing was ever enough, with that being said, I had dis-uh-carded The Paper Plate when my boredom was at its peak. I think I had grown bored The Paper Plate when I had realized that the conversation went nowhere. Granted, I rarely talked to The Paper Plate out loud and everything I’ve ever said to The Paper Plate was either in my subconscious or in faint whispers. In the duration of this friendship, though, The Paper Plate had provided a safe space to practice simple words and easy phrases.

“A-Ap-Apple.”

“Mmmm-My name is- “

“Hi, I like the uh, the uh color-

B L U E 

I had etched the word, “BLUE” across the poster board and I was shaking. The Paper Plate was long forgotten about, and I was now second to last in the line before I was in front of the crowd.

Presentations, class presentations, were no joke.

The sun beamed through the sheer window blinds; it wasn’t a warm morning, but it wasn’t a cool morning either. I was nervous, why wouldn’t I be? I didn’t have an interest in art, and I didn’t have an interest in color theory. I didn’t care that blue and red made purple, or that yellow and blue made green. What I did like about art though is that if I wanted to make everything blue, then I could. I really liked the color blue, and I really liked the mornings where it wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cool either, those were the mornings where the sky was blue, and the birds felt like talking among each other.

My poster was done very last minute, I had woken up my mom from a very late afternoon nap asking her if we can run to our local supermarket, the local supermarket that carried everything but a friend. She reluctantly agreed and drove me to the supermarket.

My speech was better tha-than before. Hiccups weren’t as frequent, but still notable. I couldn’t ask the adults for help though; I had refused to ask, which meant I never found the colored pencils, or the colored markers. If my mom had worked at the store, which she didn’t, I’d ask her for help, my mom is easy to talk to, very soft spoken. I had realized that talking to kids my age wasn’t nearly as hard as talking to the grown-ups were, they were so well spoken and the kids my age had all sorts of Gibberish-English.

My poster lacked color- because I couldn’t bring myself to ask anybody who wasn’t my mom for help- which is why I etched, “BLUE” on the top of my paper, I had hoped that it would be enough to get the point across. It wasn’t.

The sun beamed through the sheer window blinds; it felt more like a stage spot-light than it did a ray of sunshine. I was second to last and when I had looked behind, in front, and all around, my poster was the only one that was absent of color. I couldn’t look up at, I mean I could’ve but it’s not like I really wanted to. I thought I heard the other kids laughing and snickering at my poster board, but my eyes were trained on my shoelaces. It was then and only then I had realized that my left lace was longer than my right lace on my right shoe.

“Blue, uh blue is one of the prrrr-primary colors-“

At this point in time, I was in intensive once-a-week speech therapy classes provided by the school, and for the next eight years, that is where I had improved and gotten comfortable with my own voice- I was getting there- but I was far from being finished.

At the end of the presentation, which felt long and tedious, a student raised their hand had asked,

“CAN YOU REPEAT THAT LAST PART?”

I had stared back at the cashier, dumbfounded.

The Paper Plate slipped out of my mind and there was no colorless poster board in my hands. I also wasn’t second in line and my shoelaces were both equal lengths, not that it had mattered, I was first in line and calm. I was on my eighth year, regarding my speech therapy, and I had just told the cashier what I had wanted.

“Yeah man, sorry about that, uh can I g-get that with a large Sprite?”

“Sure thing, anything else?”

I shook my head from left to right and paid with a Visa gift card.

I wasn’t embarrassed that I had slipped up, and I wasn’t embarrassed about the fact that I will slip up. The eight years I had spent improving my speech and the eight years I had spent with countless people had made me realize that at the end of the day, nobody is really concerned about anyone other than themselves. I never stayed up at night and thought if The Paper Plate heard me stutter and I never went home wondering if the kids in my class were laughing at me or my colorless poster, and I didn’t go home worried if the cashier took my order will remember me as a person who stutters.

Wh-When I was starting to talk, starting to communicate, my parents quickly noticed that there was a problem.

A problem that is honestly never that damaging unless you let it be.

My initial relationship with literacy was fraught with strife and could be summarized as a traumatic affair. My obsession with literary arts began as a seething hatred that nearly destroyed my spirit. However, with the guidance of one influential person, I learned to appreciate all forms of written work.

Well into first grade of elementary school, I struggled to read even the simplest words, much less fully formed sentences. To make matters worse, I was under the tutelage of the imposing Mrs. Carol, a nasty woman who saw my shortcomings as the perfect lure to choose me as her favored prey. In my seven-year-old mind, being called on to read aloud more than my classmates was her attempt to embarrass me. Being assigned extra worksheets was punishment for my frequent failings. Being the focus of regular parent-teacher conferences was her way of alienating me from my mother. My young heart was crushed underfoot by her never-ending onslaught. I endured her constant torture until the momentous day that I espied a beacon of hope.

The Scholastic Book Fair was upon us, and so were tales of daring-do, Medieval wizards, thieves with golden locks robbing innocent bears of their porridge. My nemesis walked me through the library doors and unwittingly, as I saw it, blessed me with the hero of justice who would deliver me to the promised land of first-grade literacy.  This hero was none other than Captain Underpants. The Adventures of Captain Underpants was the first book I managed to read by myself and the beginning step on my journey for revenge. Low-brow bathroom humor was the catalyst my ADHD-riddled mind needed to find interest in reading. With my newfound escape from mundane reality, I began spending most of my waking hours with my nose in the literary masterpieces that author Dav Pilkey so graciously bestowed upon the world.

Blessed with the joy of reading, I became a child obsessed. One book turned into two, and two books turned into many. Gone were the days of sitting at the dinner table bawling my eyes out as I sat through the nightly hour of mandatory reading. I began to learn more and more, thus convincing my parents to free me from the cold steel manacles of Hooked on Phonics. I had evolved into a being composed of 70% water and 30% spite, and that spite drove me to learn as many new words as possible to thwart Mrs. Carol’s dastardly plans. To this end, George & Charles Merriam and Noah Webster became my greatest allies, and I was never far from my handheld dictionary. My petty obsession with scouring the dictionary for words and their pronunciations was a recipe for success. Stumbling through classroom readings was no longer a concern. Even I could avidly amble across atrocious alliterations authored by Dr. Seuss himself.

As most tragic tales go, my joy was short-lived. I thought my growth would be praised and foolishly believed I would be granted respite from Mrs. Carol’s fury. Instead, I now had to shoulder the shame of being denied the sweet freedom of recess with my classmates, only to be taken aside and tested on words I barely knew or had never seen. I hated myself for not being smart like the other students. I was embarrassed when Mrs. Carol escorted me to the counselor’s office to be quizzed on strange flash cards. I didn’t understand why I was being punished after all my effort, and confusion was an all too familiar feeling as I failed to grasp my teacher’s intentions.

With the school year ending, I was unaware that Mrs. Carol was about to flip my misconceptions on their head. I was busy failing to fight back tears after completing yet another test only I had been subjected to. With kindness I had never expected from her, Mrs. Carol asked me if I knew what I was being tested for. Through sobs and more snot than I care to admit, I told her that my stupidity and lack of reading skills were to blame for the constant tests. Tenderly handing me a tissue, she corrected my assumptions. “You’re not stupid,” she said, “Far from it. You’re one of my brightest students.”  She then explained my growth had been exponentially more significant in the past year than I had believed. I had gone from entirely illiterate to reading at a high school level. Mrs. Carol commended me for my growth. She saw my insecurity and cleared it from my mind with those warm words of encouragement. Within a few minutes, she turned a crying child into one bursting with self-confidence.  What I mistook for an angry and cruel woman was a patient and kind teacher determined to see me succeed.

Years later, I still look to those memories when I feel unsure about my literacy skills. Even now, I question my competency, but thanks to one committed teacher, I know how to dig deeper, try harder, and keep moving forward.