Measured Out With Coffee Spoons

I have gone out, a possessed witch,   

haunting the black air, braver at night;   

dreaming evil, I have done my hitch   

over the plain houses, light by light:   

lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.   

A woman like that is not a woman, quite.   

I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,   

filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,   

closets, silks, innumerable goods;

fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:   

whining, rearranging the disaligned.

A woman like that is misunderstood.

I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,

waved my nude arms at villages going by,   

learning the last bright routes, survivor   

where your flames still bite my thigh

and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.   

A woman like that is not ashamed to die.   

I have been her kind. 

 

- 'Her Kind' by Anne Sexton

I tend to read through my textbook when I get bored in English classes, and I stumbled upon this poem. I guess it spoke to me. Later in the semester, I had the opportunity to write an essay on any poem in the book, so naturally I chose this one. The essay involved doing a bit of research on the author. I read up on Anne Sexton, which made me read up on Sylvia Plath. These women have tragic stories, but I felt (still feel, but especially then) connected to them. I understood them in a way that scared me but in turn helped me to understand myself. Sometimes, I think people just want to take the things about themselves that are dark and frightening and just tuck them away in a corner of their heart to fester and never resolve. But the only real way that we're able to deal with those parts, come to terms with them, begin to repair them, is to face the ugliness head on.