despair

“Is despair an excellence or a defect? Purely dialectically, it is both. The possibility of this sickness is man’s superiority over the animal, for it indicates infinite sublimity that he is spirit. Consequently, to be able to despair is an infinite advantage, and yet to be in despair is not only the worst misfortune and misery—no, it is ruination.”

Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

Poem Inspired by Richard Siken

...and obviously influenced by my latest Literature, Violence and the State class. Let's see how badly blogger butchers the oh-so-important formatting:


What Are You Doing To Me, Lucrece?

1
Girl—
your violence is so silent, it’s choking me.
Making me think longingly
of the blue-and-white pills between now and then,
between now and the several hours from now,
when time, like a blanket, will smother the tears threatening to
leak out all over the place.

2
So I saw someone with his impish hair and dark skin on the streets today and I gasped
right outloud and my heart
started racing and then I just got so disappointed
for even thinking about him.
I thought I was done with that.
Sure enough, driving through New York and New Jersey a song came on the radio.
It reminded me of a little a capella group I used to sing in
which made me so upset--
brow shining and creased, hands twisting and twisting into themselves,
which I hid by pretending to read billboards.

Anyway, after what happened
I just let him keep the a capella.
One more grief I could lay on him,
on his pillow, on his bed, next to that huge nose of his,
next to the traced veins and the bleach
and the little paper bag holding all my receipts and release forms.

3
Well haven’t I just joined the rest of my gentle sex
in this---?
Choking with every Elizabethan term I come across for struggled,
forced, torn, shame, contempt…
Well isn’t it nice that I am now a member?
That I can now claim rights to their pity, that I can now blame my faults on
the plight and violence of gender,
that in this I can now feel to the fullest extent?
My emotions my sword and my armor and the I.D. declaring my citizenship.
In this ancient echo of what came to pass,
in your lamenting,
you remind me that I’m free to use my greatest asset:
weaving tapestries of tears that tug at the heartstrings.

Although that didn’t really work for you, did it?
Not to stay the crime, no, but to ask for forgiveness,
yes, yes of course.
Of course they’ll forgive you, as long as you offer to kill yourself.

4
Silly girl.
Even I knew that.
Though I didn’t know I was following your example when I did.
But, oh, we don’t really talk about that.
We don’t really try to dwell on that place of plastic windows,
plastic everything,
meals on trays, linoleum, decaf coffee, pinstripes and barcodes like lifelines,
I’m just searching for something organic here…
Well,
in all this,
at least I can say thank you
for making it hurt, Lucrece, making me remember.
For telling me I was on the right path all along, with all this
god-damned self-pity, self-righteousness, self-sacrifice.
Though I do wish you’d stuck around so you could tell me
if it ever gets better.

The Rape of Lucrece

Lucrece tries to reason with Tarquin for almost 100 lines, pleading (as a woman should), yes, but in the language of reason and rhetoric claimed by the authority of the state. Attempting to persuade him in a way that should be unavailable to her (because of her sex), she argues logically and appeals to his senses of loyalty, pride, status, common sense...everything he should hold dear. And yet...

'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state--'
'No more,' quoth he: 'By heaven I will not hear thee.
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate
Instead of love's coy touch shall rudely tear thee.
That done, despitefully* I mean to bear thee
Unto the base bed of some rascal groom
To be thy partner in this shameful doom.'

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
For light and lust are deadly enemies.
Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
The wolf hath seized his prey; the poor lamb cries,
Till with her own white fleece** her voice controlled
Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold.

*despitefully here means "with complete contempt for you; shamefully" (according to the translation in the The Oxford Shakespeare 'The Complete Sonnets and Poems')
**white fleece "literally her sheets, nightly linen, which Tarquin uses to muffle her cries

This is most of the description of the rape upon which this long poem is based. So subtle, short, masked, and yet so violent. It chokes me. And I think about what it will be like to discuss this in class later on today. But there is 20mg of Prozac between now and then, and several hours for this to settle in, for my fuzzy rationality to blanket the wet tears seeking to squeeze and leak out of my face.

A funny thought occurs to me. (Funny in a distinctly morbid kind of way of course). I wonder about the silent subtext of the discussion to come--who in that room will have experienced sexual violence? Firsthand? Second? Now that I have, and this poem pains me deeper and deeper yet, I have that strange thought: 'well, I'm sure most of the women/girls in that class have also experienced this or something like it, so at least I won't be alone.' Since sexual violence, especially for women and especially on college campuses is so very very common.

and haven't i joined the rest of my sex
in this...?
choking with every Elizabethan word for struggle
force, torn, shame, and contempt?
in this, shouldn't i feel relief in familiarity
rather than shame in recognition?
for now i am a member
i can claim rights on pity, sadness
my right as a woman, in this i can
now feel to the fullest extent
emotions my sword, my armor, my I.D. declaring citizenship
in this reminder of my stolen dignity
i am free to use my greatest asset:
a plea for rationality through appealing to pity

...Although that certainly didn't work for Lucrece, did it? I guess that's the point. From a strictly feminist point of view (I really can't help it, it seems like that's all I ever encounter in my readings for class these days. Why am I apologizing for it though?), the one tool women might have over the violence of the state, the patriarchy, men, is the emotions which govern them. This weapon is their (our) "greatest asset" (beyond pure sexuality, which of course wouldn't do much good in trying to escape a sexual assault, as in this case), and yet apparently cannot conquer violence and lust--at least that is the message here in the story of Lucrece and Tarquin, her aggressor. Hmm.

of transcendence

in art
in spirituality
in technology

through trauma
through ambiguity

a collection, a record of my Division II as it happens.

expect this to be slow-going at first as I bring it up to date.