A Birthday Present-Sylvia Plath

[00:04.664] What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? [00:10.140] It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? [00:13.667] I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is just what I want. [00:18.356] When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking [00:22.719] 'Is this the one I am too appear for, [00:25.086] Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? [00:29.484] Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, [00:32.807] Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. [00:37.342] Is this the one for the annunciation? [00:39.643] My god, what a laugh!' [00:43.216] But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me. [00:48.255] I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button. [00:51.724] I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year. [00:55.431] After all I am alive only by accident. [00:59.146] I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way. [01:03.626] Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, [01:07.397] The diaphanous satins of a January window [01:10.216] White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory! [01:17.010] It must be a tusk there, a ghost column. [01:20.033] Can you not see I do not mind what it is. [01:23.345] Can you not give it to me? [01:25.147] Do not be ashamed—I do not mind if it is small. [01:29.668] Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity. [01:33.982] Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, [01:38.596] The glaze, the mirrory variety of it. [01:42.627] Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. [01:48.050] I know why you will not give it to me, [01:50.498] You are terrified [01:51.749] The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, [01:55.347] Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, [01:58.285] A marvel to your great-grandchildren. [02:01.980] Do not be afraid, it is not so. [02:05.986] I will only take it and go aside quietly. [02:09.133] You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, [02:14.053] No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. [02:18.140] I do not think you credit me with this discretion. [02:20.679] If you only knew how the veils were killing my days. [02:24.085] To you they are only transparencies, clear air. [02:28.561] But my god, the clouds are like cotton. [02:32.355] Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide. [02:35.517] Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in, [02:39.436] Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million [02:42.986] Probable motes that tick the years off my life. [02:46.581] You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine——- [02:52.118] Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole? [02:57.172] Must you stamp each piece purple, [03:00.306] Must you kill what you can? [03:02.553] There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me. [03:07.688] It stands at my window, big as the sky. [03:10.987] It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center [03:15.465] Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history. [03:20.899] Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger. [03:24.761] Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty [03:28.046] By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it. [03:32.872] Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. [03:37.894] If it were death [03:43.119] I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. [03:44.363] I would know you were serious. [03:46.781] There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. [03:50.883] And the knife not carve, but enter [03:53.654] Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, [03:57.171] And the universe slide from my side.