Sylvia and Joni

“God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of “parties” with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter – they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship – but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.”

Sylvia Plath

How were such words even conceived? How is it that the tools that everyone has were arranged in a way that conveyed such depth, such despair? And how is it that these words conveyed a truth that cut right to the core of me? I don't know and can't even begin to know, but as soon as I read these words it was as if someone had grabbed out my vocal chords and pulled me along with them. "It takes one to know one" is such a childish phrase but it is entirely relevant. It takes one to know one. It takes pain to know pain, it takes loneliness to know loneliness.