a found poem: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I have long wanted someone to think about
when sleep will not come

and exposed time—born to take
what it can—scratches me so I crack open

with sorrow. But I—with my rotting
depressed mind

with all my tortured experience of the world—
have no one.

I am different from other people
and the fact is I can hardly bear myself.

How I desire a vivacious imagination
an assertive wit, to be attractive and gifted.

I’m not at all—and never will be—
like fairy-tale girls;

I am so deeply and disgustingly human.
I never thought

living would be like this. Why is it so
common to be bereft of love?

Nazifa Islam is the author of the poetry collections Searching for a Pulse (Whitepoint Press, 2013) and Forlorn Light: Virginia Woolf Found Poems (Shearsman Books, 2021). Her poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, The Believer, and Beloit Poetry Journal among other publications. She earned her MFA at Oregon State University. You can find her @nafoopal.