Excerpts
Terrible Tuesday: I’m Stressed and Reading Depressing Things
Sometimes, when I am miserable, I read things that are even more awful than my life and this is soothing. Twelve years ago, my marriage was a pile of dogshit and I was really miserable and I read all sorts of stuff on Cambodia, including a biography of Pol Pot called Brother Number One, watched The Killing Fields, read Eichmann in Jerusalem, and more or less immersed myself in thinking about genocide. Today, I am contemplating quitting smoking because I don’t want to die, alarmed at how much booze I can ingest, haven’t gone running in weeks, am afraid of the swine flu and awaiting the results of a TB test I had done on Monday, have ants badly in the kitchen and- one of my cats pees EVERYWHERE and my house is a shameful, eye-burning shithole. Maybe I should be reading about Stalin today, but instead, I’ve been revisiting Frances Driscoll’s book of poetry, The Rape Poems (click here to read another one of her poems):
Some Lucky Girls
We were so lucky to get them. Nobody else
appreciates them. Least of all the professionals who
see this as sympton, wait for anger. But almost
everybody in group agrees. And if some weeks later
some of us stumble around saying, I wish he’d killed
me, well, that’s just a phase most of us live through
and nobody’s paying any attention anyway except
the professionals who offer really good pastel
drugs for both day and night. Of course Louise
I guess basically she always just wanted
to see hers neon flat dead but beled bad first but
I don’t think she ever was really objective of course
there was that matter of the vaginal tear and
he did make her take that supervised bath afterward
but he was so supportive, so sympathetic when
she was getting all upset in the beginning as he
watched her strip standing in her bedroom doorway
he tried to help her through. Rape is never easy, he
said. Caroline and I were crazy about our guys
from the moment they left. My rapist was so nice,
Caroline says. He wanted so very much to please
me. What do you like, he said. I mean, he held a
knife to my throat but he was so gentle. And, my
rapist, he was wondeful. Well, look at me. No
visible scars. He let me live. He let me keep on
my dress.
Tags: frances driscoll
That’s tough to read.
That’s tough to read.
yes, this is “tough to read”
tough because of its subject matter and its restrained off-hand tone.
but tough also because it is not well written. maybe it’s just me but i can’t make head or tail of most the line-breaks
(and i’m all for reading GOOD depressing stuff)
yes, this is “tough to read”
tough because of its subject matter and its restrained off-hand tone.
but tough also because it is not well written. maybe it’s just me but i can’t make head or tail of most the line-breaks
(and i’m all for reading GOOD depressing stuff)
Fuck.
Fuck.
PR, when I feel like shit I also like reading awful stuff. In college and high school, depressed as fuck, I liked to read about the Stanley Milgram obedience to authority experiments and how Nazis used to make Jews watch Rabbis eat others’ feces.
This is astoundingly painful to read. I’m going to read it again.
PR, when I feel like shit I also like reading awful stuff. In college and high school, depressed as fuck, I liked to read about the Stanley Milgram obedience to authority experiments and how Nazis used to make Jews watch Rabbis eat others’ feces.
This is astoundingly painful to read. I’m going to read it again.
I understand your problem with the line breaks. I think it works as is, but “formally” it’s strange.
I understand your problem with the line breaks. I think it works as is, but “formally” it’s strange.
And I took the random line breaks as purposefully senseless, as a device of wrongness, or meaningless. But that’s just me.
And I took the random line breaks as purposefully senseless, as a device of wrongness, or meaningless. But that’s just me.
When I get depressed I read my old journals and realize, wow, I may still be a dumbass, but at least I’m not as big of one as I was at 20. People tell me reality television shows can uplift anyone who feels bummed out, but that stuff just makes me think the apocalyspe is nearing. Also, eat sugar for a false, quick release.
When I get depressed I read my old journals and realize, wow, I may still be a dumbass, but at least I’m not as big of one as I was at 20. People tell me reality television shows can uplift anyone who feels bummed out, but that stuff just makes me think the apocalyspe is nearing. Also, eat sugar for a false, quick release.
sorry to hear that your feeling bad. Hope you get feel better soon.
sorry to hear that your feeling bad. Hope you get feel better soon.
sorry to hear your feeling bad, hope you feel better soon.
sorry to hear your feeling bad, hope you feel better soon.
Thanks Kelly. So nice of you to say that.
My TB test came back negative today and honestly, I am a different person than yesterday. It’s no fun being tested for pulmonary tuberculosis- I travel a lot and a good friend in a foreign country thought he was dying of lung cancer and it was TB- so I think that was really heavy on my mind.