What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you. Jeanette Winterson
About This Quote

This quote is a good example of how a relationship can be fractured by fear and insecurity. This quote is from a poem written by Sylvia Plath. The poem is about her, as she is torn between two men, both of whom she loves. In the first stanza, she states that she wants to be held but not too close.

In the second stanza, she wants to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find her and protect herself from being found. She asks if she can sleep in his arms and asks him not to come too close. Despite the fact that the lines are so ambiguous, we can still figure out what she was asking for.

She asks for protection and safety, but also asks him to scoop her up and bring her home at night, to be with her. These are pretty clear requests that he should fulfill. As the poem continues, however, Plath begins to express how insecure she feels.

The last line of this section of the poem states that “I want my heart back inside my chest” which expresses just how badly she wants to be alone and not share her heart with anyone else.

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More Quotes By Jeanette Winterson
  1. You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap...

  2. As your lover describes you, so you are.

  3. I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and knows that love is as strong as death, and be on my side forever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me.

  4. What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop...

  5. Why is the measure of love loss?

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