The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

by Sylvia Plath

child-fingers thicken; to feel the sex organs develop and call loud to the flesh; to become aware of school, exams (the very words as unlovely as the sound of chalk shrilling on the blackboard,) bread and butter, marriage, sex, compatibility, war, economics, death and self. What a pathetic blighting of the beauty and reality of childhood. Not to be sentimental, as I sound, but why the hell are we conditioned into the smooth strawberry-and-cream Mother-Goose-world, Alice-in-Wonderland fable, only to be broken on the wheel as we grow older and become aware of ourselves as individuals with a dull responsibility in life? to learn snide and smutty meanings of words you once loved, like “fairy.” to go to college fraternity parties where a boy buries his face in your neck or tries to rape you if he isn’t satisfied with