I'm in a relationship with Sylvia Plath and we're writing on opposite sides of the room, pretending that each of us doesn't exist. She's working on a poetry collection, and when she breathes she breathes like there's a fire in her lungs. I'm working on a horror story in which she dies because I'm unable to tell her that I love her. Just hours before I'd taken her to an Italian restaurant on the top floor of a hotel, and she would only eat an oyster, and drink a little wine. She is not paying attention to me, she is paying attention to the detail on the tablecloth, the printing on the menu.
"A poet must remember every detail," she said, and I smile.
I am a horror writer, I do not have to remember every detail. I only have to know that after I take her home Sylvia Plath will retreat to her corner of the room, and she will breathe like there is a fire in her lungs. She will flagellate herself trying to remember every detail - was the tablecloth cream, or beige? Were the details in the lace made of flowers, or swans? What country of origin was the wine from? What did the cufflinks of the waiter look like?
I am in a relationship with Sylvia Plath and I do not know how to tell her that I love her. I say it often. "I love you. I love you. I love you." But she is thinking about the color of the tiles at the bottom of the glistening fountain on that hotel roof. When she retreats to bed and the pins come out of her hair, and she removes her bustier she is cold underneath. Her ribs are sticking to the wallpaper. She is small without her writing to armor her.
She is a poet and she is remembering every detail. But I am a horror writer, and I only see her.
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