At college in my junior year,
I had a nervous breakdown,
or so I told Dr
Coluccio in a long letter
I typed at my desk
in Eliot House. Anxious, exhausted,
fretful, I explained
that I needed to quit school, certainly
to get away from Harvard.
I spoke in desperation: I
couldn’t sleep or study
or write; my life was impossible,
painful, insupportable …
I didn’t tell him I’d broken
with Freda, then gone with
Rosalind and split up with her, then
Priscilla. I typed,
making many errors, and intended
to hand-deliver my letter
right then, but when I finished,
I felt overwhelmingly sleepy.
I woke after two hours
entirely calm and cheerful
and quickly crumpled the letter.
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