i am. i am. i am

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.

If Mrs. Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn’t have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat–on the deck of a ship or at a street cafe in Paris or Bangkok–I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure at all. How did I know that someday–at college, in Europe, somewhere–the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.

Excerpts from: Plath, Sylvia. “The Bell Jar.”