According to The Week it was suicide by weed killer (not OD as earlier reported) probably in reaction to her ovarian cancer. And that she had attempted it before, last year leaping from a bridge. How sad, and yet I can't condemn her. This too is very Vile Bodies and Bright Young Things.
...The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood...
(excerpt from) Lady Lazarus--Sylvia Plath
The first time I died
Was in the arms of good friends of mine.
They kiss me with tears.
They hadn’t been near me for years.
Say, why do it now
When I won’t be around, I’m going out?
We needed you
To love us too.
We wait for your move.
Only tragedy allows the release
Of love and grief never normally seen.
I didn’t want to let them see me weep,
I didn’t want to let them see me weak,
But I know I have shown
That I stand at the gates alone.
I needed you
To love me too.
I wait for your move.
All the love, all the love,
All the love we should have given.
All the love, all the love,
All the love you could have given.
All the love, all the love,
All the love...(run for the hills...)*
The next time I dedicate
My life’s work to the friends I make,
I give them what they want to hear.
They think I’m up to something weird
And up rears the head of fear in me.
So now when they ring
I get my machine to let them in.
I needed you
To love me too.
I wait for your move.
All the Love--Kate Bush
Do you know the despair
the despair of excellence?
Of seeing the world as it is,
And finding it a deformed prodigy
Too many minds are too small
for the bodies they control
Tomorrow really is too many
light years away for me to hang on
Its only glass anyway
Not at all the sort of thing we want
in our neighborhood
Nohow
It spirals down--climbing DNA ladders
Do you know the power of stopping?
Watching the world crash into itself
Maybe we'll all fall into a black hole
And black holes don't care
about prom queens, do they?
Breaking Point--Novel (age 15)
If I am your Orpheus, and you Euridice,
And anger, grief, misfortune, but our hell,
Had I not pulled you back from Hades' depths
Could I have loved you half so well?
My love is like the clement ocean,
Lapping sweetly at the shore,
When the tide is high upon the beach,
I love you even more.
But in power for destruction,
My rage is like the sea
Eating at unstable sands
As this eats at you and me.
What if death is like a silent ocean
That sooths the soul in gentle night?
Then was it kind for either one of us,
To drag the other to the light?
But if death is more like drowning
With pain and endless black,
Then you'd think the fight would grant
The strength, to beat our furies back.
The Best of Intentions--Novel (age 30)
...The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood...
(excerpt from) Lady Lazarus--Sylvia Plath
The first time I died
Was in the arms of good friends of mine.
They kiss me with tears.
They hadn’t been near me for years.
Say, why do it now
When I won’t be around, I’m going out?
We needed you
To love us too.
We wait for your move.
Only tragedy allows the release
Of love and grief never normally seen.
I didn’t want to let them see me weep,
I didn’t want to let them see me weak,
But I know I have shown
That I stand at the gates alone.
I needed you
To love me too.
I wait for your move.
All the love, all the love,
All the love we should have given.
All the love, all the love,
All the love you could have given.
All the love, all the love,
All the love...(run for the hills...)*
The next time I dedicate
My life’s work to the friends I make,
I give them what they want to hear.
They think I’m up to something weird
And up rears the head of fear in me.
So now when they ring
I get my machine to let them in.
I needed you
To love me too.
I wait for your move.
All the Love--Kate Bush
Do you know the despair
the despair of excellence?
Of seeing the world as it is,
And finding it a deformed prodigy
Too many minds are too small
for the bodies they control
Tomorrow really is too many
light years away for me to hang on
Its only glass anyway
Not at all the sort of thing we want
in our neighborhood
Nohow
It spirals down--climbing DNA ladders
Do you know the power of stopping?
Watching the world crash into itself
Maybe we'll all fall into a black hole
And black holes don't care
about prom queens, do they?
Breaking Point--Novel (age 15)
If I am your Orpheus, and you Euridice,
And anger, grief, misfortune, but our hell,
Had I not pulled you back from Hades' depths
Could I have loved you half so well?
My love is like the clement ocean,
Lapping sweetly at the shore,
When the tide is high upon the beach,
I love you even more.
But in power for destruction,
My rage is like the sea
Eating at unstable sands
As this eats at you and me.
What if death is like a silent ocean
That sooths the soul in gentle night?
Then was it kind for either one of us,
To drag the other to the light?
But if death is more like drowning
With pain and endless black,
Then you'd think the fight would grant
The strength, to beat our furies back.
The Best of Intentions--Novel (age 30)
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