hell with love
you fit into me
like a hook in an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
-margaret atwood
I’m trapped. Caught in a hexagonal world of shafts and dungeons all encompassing one large cage of reason. The Church of reason, is that what Pirisig called it? I believe so. The Church of Reason doesn’t know everything, we can revel in what is right and socially appropriate, but why do so under a guise of something so vague as reason? As I said, I am trapped. Caught. Snagged. My mind and body are being sporadically sliced and tested until what is left is a gathered mess of confusion. I am ensnared with reason, and the outside world, what is expected of me by others, by myself… what simply should and should not be. I am ripped to shreds by those who desire something of me, question me, hate me, love me, ostracize me, expect me to be what they have always thought I am. I am caught in that millisecond in which an emotion becomes a heartbeat, the time between a caught throat and a scream. The difference in the two noises it takes to click ones tongue, I am there. Caught between two noises, between two worlds, and how DARE I be here. Pricking eyes can glare all they wish and they’ll never come close to having the right to question my actions, my emotions right now. But how dare I act in such a way? Silly Erin, getting herself worked up over nothing, over life, over inevitability. Ridiculous Erin with her constant need to chill out, in the request of one. Why get her panties in a twist? It is not the scream itself that bothers you, but the fact that I even entertained the idea of screaming in the first place. Of course. I am to be reserved, sedate, stately, dignified. Everything that is required of my title, the other, everything that is socially appropriate. Of course! It was not your mouth that was offensive but my eyes that had the Audacity to glisten. How dare me… how dare I.
Just because I saw outside the world you’ve placed me in? (Oh I’m sorry, you’re right, you never placed me anywhere, it was of my own volition that I dissolved me heart). Just because I once ceased to sparkle your smile, to brighten your eyes, just because of that, and you saw me at my lowest, you can’t entertain that I have the sense to wish to crawl out of this hell hold I’ve created? Am I meant to wallow? Pardon the incredulity of it all, but I think not. And because I have slowly, achingly scratched a reason and sense back into my life, into my heart, that is a sign of weakness, and an open invitation for immediate upheaval? What is this radical idea? A person cannot strive to rid themselves of emotion for a past love? Phoebe, why did you curse us? Were we not meant to have a drop of masculine indifference? Why, God did you make us to be these sensitive beings when we are being set up, lifelong to be torn down and ridiculed for that very emotion which you initially instilled in us? Why, when we fathom to attempt to be strong, to brick ourselves away, which is the only way to deal with certain matters, did you make the other companion so harsh and brutal and methodical in their way of thinking? Was Adam an ass or did it breed from Cain? Was eve an emotional wreck or did it begin with Charlotte Bronte` ? Who the hell has the right to criticize a woman’s way of dealing with collapse, least of all a Male, who hopefully possesses no womanly fashions of the mind. Oh yes, he can be understanding, and sympathetic and perhaps…perhaps empathetic with certain things. But he does not possess the heart nor mind of the woman, which of course is set up from the beginning to be a wrecked house of reason.
I’m so twirled, I’ve lost my train of tangential thought. But what a piece of work is man, what a mauled, gnarled and contorted shred of dignity we can be at times. Ah, what a basket case I can be at times. Because I forget the oath of eyes ever dry? Because I dared to let something hit me personally. Because just perhaps, and this is a stretch folks, perhaps I was not the uncouth one.
It’s just a thought.
like a hook in an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
-margaret atwood
I’m trapped. Caught in a hexagonal world of shafts and dungeons all encompassing one large cage of reason. The Church of reason, is that what Pirisig called it? I believe so. The Church of Reason doesn’t know everything, we can revel in what is right and socially appropriate, but why do so under a guise of something so vague as reason? As I said, I am trapped. Caught. Snagged. My mind and body are being sporadically sliced and tested until what is left is a gathered mess of confusion. I am ensnared with reason, and the outside world, what is expected of me by others, by myself… what simply should and should not be. I am ripped to shreds by those who desire something of me, question me, hate me, love me, ostracize me, expect me to be what they have always thought I am. I am caught in that millisecond in which an emotion becomes a heartbeat, the time between a caught throat and a scream. The difference in the two noises it takes to click ones tongue, I am there. Caught between two noises, between two worlds, and how DARE I be here. Pricking eyes can glare all they wish and they’ll never come close to having the right to question my actions, my emotions right now. But how dare I act in such a way? Silly Erin, getting herself worked up over nothing, over life, over inevitability. Ridiculous Erin with her constant need to chill out, in the request of one. Why get her panties in a twist? It is not the scream itself that bothers you, but the fact that I even entertained the idea of screaming in the first place. Of course. I am to be reserved, sedate, stately, dignified. Everything that is required of my title, the other, everything that is socially appropriate. Of course! It was not your mouth that was offensive but my eyes that had the Audacity to glisten. How dare me… how dare I.
Just because I saw outside the world you’ve placed me in? (Oh I’m sorry, you’re right, you never placed me anywhere, it was of my own volition that I dissolved me heart). Just because I once ceased to sparkle your smile, to brighten your eyes, just because of that, and you saw me at my lowest, you can’t entertain that I have the sense to wish to crawl out of this hell hold I’ve created? Am I meant to wallow? Pardon the incredulity of it all, but I think not. And because I have slowly, achingly scratched a reason and sense back into my life, into my heart, that is a sign of weakness, and an open invitation for immediate upheaval? What is this radical idea? A person cannot strive to rid themselves of emotion for a past love? Phoebe, why did you curse us? Were we not meant to have a drop of masculine indifference? Why, God did you make us to be these sensitive beings when we are being set up, lifelong to be torn down and ridiculed for that very emotion which you initially instilled in us? Why, when we fathom to attempt to be strong, to brick ourselves away, which is the only way to deal with certain matters, did you make the other companion so harsh and brutal and methodical in their way of thinking? Was Adam an ass or did it breed from Cain? Was eve an emotional wreck or did it begin with Charlotte Bronte` ? Who the hell has the right to criticize a woman’s way of dealing with collapse, least of all a Male, who hopefully possesses no womanly fashions of the mind. Oh yes, he can be understanding, and sympathetic and perhaps…perhaps empathetic with certain things. But he does not possess the heart nor mind of the woman, which of course is set up from the beginning to be a wrecked house of reason.
I’m so twirled, I’ve lost my train of tangential thought. But what a piece of work is man, what a mauled, gnarled and contorted shred of dignity we can be at times. Ah, what a basket case I can be at times. Because I forget the oath of eyes ever dry? Because I dared to let something hit me personally. Because just perhaps, and this is a stretch folks, perhaps I was not the uncouth one.
It’s just a thought.