This is an excerpt of the book The Cracks In The Wall inspired by Sylvia Plath's life.

Cynthia felt old at 12, she was running with freedom, with the star eyed hope of magic, that there was a real earth that felt her movements that changed with her as she changed, that could see through her; Cynthia ran with the ferns under her fingers into the forest that would never end, into the lullabies her mother still shared with her deep into the night, into places where her mother was always needed.

But Cynthia was someone else’s choice now, this rare real raw choice of something she could never put her finger on. Cynthia was the world’s choice, because it loved her. The world and society could touch her, it could make her its spectacle, its every changing colored fool, as Cynthia reached, as she knew better, as she hoped.

And Cynthia could taste what love was, in that asexual air, in that closed door, soil filled root, she could taste heart ache too like a plant spreading its seeds, like a man who remained inside every class room with a given authority, constantly grading, constantly creating this unknown unpassable test. This darkness or lightness, this empty meaning in her head.

 “Cynthia what are you doing? I wanted you in the house an hour ago.”

“What for?” Cynthia felt defiant and worthless in the same second. As Cynthia heard her mother rubbing her hands on her apron and an imaginary noise of her grandparents leaving their beds upstairs, explaining and touching and moving the entire house without permission, without even breathing.

“For dinner.” Ameillia’s voice was stern and invisible. It was love and it was passive hate.

“Okay,” Cynthia said, feeling a fleet of flying birds coming from the back of her heads, they would take her down like a man takes a woman down, but that wasn’t the way Cynthia was raised.

 “Come on, Cynthia,” her mother sounded inpatient like a ringing bell over a grave, like a worry indented frown that was tossed away because in this world choice was still king.

“Can I,” and Cynthia turned to look at her mother, that extension of her hand, “Come look at the ferns in the breeze with me, for just a minute.” and there was a hidden woman in that voice, there was a 45 yearold who had lived for too long in her freshly stretched skin.

“Okay,” Ameillia was weary and filled with tears.

“I love you,” Cynthia wanted to whisper, it had been so long since they stood together with nature, it reminded her of going to the ocean when she was young, for just a minute, just a second, during their entire lifetime together.

“It is beautiful,” Ameillia felt her own shoulders being taken by the breeze, taken by the square constant house hidden behind her back.

 “I wish we could eat dinner out here.”

“You know grandma and grampa couldn’t make it out this far from the house and the wind would disturb the food, and what about your little brother.”

“I know, I know,” Cynthia smiled feeling the grasp of her mother’s attention, like pulling out a table cloth from under the dishes and having clutched the heart before it shattered.

“You are the love of my life Cynthia,” Ameillia touched the back of Cynthia’s head.

I know you say that, Cynthia thought. Cynthia was hidden in yellow squiggled lines, carried by birds over troubled waters.

“I want to know you better sometimes,” Ameillia said as she felt her hand melt into her daughter’s back, as she felt the heaviness of everything she carried stick to her, love her, pretend to ignore her.

“I wish,” Cynthia said in her youth, in her arrogance, in her colored love. But Cynthia didn’t finish the words, she didn’t have to.

“You know, I am much closer to you than my own mother,” Ameillia said laughing at innocence, like a child laughs, like a villain laughs.

“I love you,” Cynthia said, still thinking of the fern and the games she would play with friends. “I love you mom,” she said in that needy voice.

And her mother kissed her head, and kissed the back of her own hand.

“I work hard to love you,” Ameillia’s smiled carelessly now.

“I work hard to not love you,” Cynthia smiled pulling at the string that surrounded every guarded fear that was around their family like a moot, like a farm in a city.

“You work hard to not love anyone,” and Ameillia laughed at the moon, that wishful constant force that was making them feel like a reflection of water in someone’s oil painting in an psychiatrist office.

“I know but especially”

“Me, why me,” Ameillia was finally ready to give in, as she felt the echo of her own name on her child’s breath.

“I don’t know,” Cynthia laughed, wanting to fall down all the sudden, wanting to gravel at her mother’s feet for any ounce of love she could willing give, for every ounce of love she would one day take away, and destroy towards her moments of worship, her idol.

And there Cynthia was, a puppy stomach up asking to be rubbed, the same feeling she would have with men who asked for her breasts, who asked for her sensitivity as validation.

“You know, we are exactly the same.”

“Never,” Cynthia would never give in.

“You and me. I would have been just like you when I was young. But you are so much smarter than I was.”

“Am I?”

“Well maybe,” and Ameillia cracked a smile. The first one she had had in a long week.

“There is freedom here,” whispered the ferns and the trees that looked so scary and content all at once, but their voices were broken by the thunder clasp of the door opening and a small timid boy looking up at them, weakening their hearts, grasping for what they were not certain of, and like a world made in fairy tales and picture books an entire wall was suddenly created. The wall of divided interest. The wall that kept the unloved, the ignored and the painful luck far far away. And Cynthia looked up seeing her brother’s lost look, and she felt a suddenly urge to run away to find the giddiness of the black soil, of the tree roots.

“Why don’t you help me set the table,” Ameillia said smiling chipperly feeling a sense of fullness with the blossoming life around her, and her children’s love.

“Of course,” Cynthia said racing inside, back inside the world, the place where all things had more importance than they do outside.

“I love you mom,” came a voice in Ameillia’s ear, a voice she didn’t recognize. And as that echo followed Ameillia deep into the house next to the stove and her family she felt a burst of ability, of possibility. Ameillia looked up and caught her daughter’s eyes. That ability became her memory of what happiness would feel like. Ameillia would search for it when life changed, wondering how so much happiness could come inside such a small space, a space where so many different stories lived. 

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There was a dark red that filled the corners of the objects from the corners of her mind, from the raw attachments that circled her head like fleeting half winged broken angels creating mischief from a poet, coating the unsaid words, or the raging blood from screaming. Her innocent soft explanations were tied constantly with so many different ribbons from religion, to the bottom of a woman’s dress that was scratching the brown dirt.

And there was going to be an ongoing unknown listening patriarchy for a while, for the rest of the lives of capable women who fail; who touch the curtain between life and death with curse words for their failure at their attempt at leaving a mark.

 “I am here, right here,” Cynthia thought stroking a fern thinking of the world of women, the world that was waiting for her. And yet that world felt fake, distant, distasteful, full of disposable attachments; a constant love that was swinging by the trees of another creator than a Woman God.

Cynthia was going to stay here in the silence for as long as it took, until she could clear herself of the world, until she could clear herself of all the other souls who had occupied her skin. They had curled themselves around her stomach, they had laid subtly still under her bottom lip, they had laughed with her from the top of her head. Cynthia may be wrong, but she was going to remain on an empty beach in her memory with only her own judgment.