I have such a striving not to be ordinary. Perfection is so boring. It draws you in, but it is monotonous.

Until now it is what I wanted. It is the only thing I know to work towards. I do not know how to become a passionate fireball, or a deep ocean.

I know I'm beginning to crack under the strain of maintaining the facade of perfection. Maybe that will be for the best.

My mother would have a heart attack if she saw my dorm room. There's a tampon wrapper on the floor; the garbage is overflowing, again. Dirty cups line my desk, and almost every item of clothing I own is strewn, unfolded, across the futon and floor. My towel is draped over the back of my desk chair, which is also serving as a desk for my laptop and a place to keep my many jolly ranchers. My books are either on the floor or sitting on top of the cardboard box of things I should have unpacked when I got here but didn't, out of sheer laziness. To complete the image, the floor is littered with candy wrappers, little pieces of paper from spiral-torn pages, and other miscellaneous debris.

I like to blame this mess on the small size of the rooms in Schroeder. It was really never this messy when I lived in Cobeen. The point being, don't let your parents near your rooms in college. At least not if you have any sentiments regarding their well being.

Mirror

Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.