Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)
Positive and Negative Currents

It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents:
joyous positive and despairing negative -- which ever is running
at the moment dominates my life, floods it. I am now flooded
with despair, almost hysteria, as if I were smothering. As if a
great muscular owl were sitting on my chest, its talons clenching
and constricting my heart.