leaden circles

it is past april and well into may. plath's april used to hang over my head back in school, but now it's just a teenage quirk, another melon ice-cream, another party in someone's bukit timah home. within a month, i have finished mrs dalloway, i have watched st. elmo's fire [so delightfully 80's, to say the least], slept around more [in many ways], bought an ipod shuffle and airport express, put on weight, lost weight, scouted around for a place to rent, thought i was gay, thought i was straight, got rejected by brown. and today with a wonderful flourish, as if to promise something better, i met aidan. but always a voice says to me, are you sure? are you sure? have i progressed? am i past yearning? do i have an answer? no. yes. no. no. still i think i can give so much more but, oh, the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row. can you help yourself? can i help myself? will we be fine? how will we grow? cold! cold! the leaden circles dissolve - without mercy, no - into the air.

It was fascinating with people still laughing and shouting in the drawing-room, to watch that old woman, quite quietly, going to bed alone. She pulled the blind now. The clock began striking. The young man had killed himself; but she did not pity him; with the clock striking the hour, one, two, three, she did not pity him, with all this going on. There! The old lady had put out her light! the whole house was dark now with this going on, she repeated, and the words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back to them. But what an extraordinary night! She felt somehow like him - the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while they went on living.