happy birthday, sylvia plath
i'm writing you a birthday letter
because nobody does it enough anymore

i studied your book once and
had a horrifying vision
that i would be rejected
and i would forget language and words and
i wouldn't write anymore
like you i suffered to breathe
i suffered to watch and i
found comfort in *****
i couldn't drink it neat like you did
i could fall asleep
but you didn't

your pain pained me
and i wondered what you'd think of
my writing
if we'd swap poems and

but we couldn't
i suffered rejection too
and for a while the words wouldn't come
i slept more and ate less
i smoked more and spoke less
but i found the words again
taught myself from reading dictionaries of loss
and though my bad habits remained
i felt ever so slightly more like me
and less like you

i got better
i wish you did too