brain taps twice for salt (elegy with anne carson inside it)
there came a point when i accepted i was never going to "get better" — i was never going to be "well" — and that life would consist of "managing". but even then i was still fooling myself.
diagnostic criteria for various depressive disorders require the identification of specific periods of depression. but the concept of having discrete episodes of depression is completely foreign to me. i know that from birth to approximately the age of eight i was not depressed. and there were likely periods from ages eight to perhaps ten when i was not depressed. but since then depression has simply been the default. i am never not depressed. it's merely an issue of quantitative descriptors, of more or less. more or less since we last spoke; more or less than last week; more or less since yesterday.
i am always going to be depressed. not in the sense of a recovering alcoholic who no longer drinks; not asymptomatic; not in remission. not even in the sense of someone who monitors and controls their diabetes with insulin and/or diet. i am always going to be depressed in the same way that sisyphus is always going to be pushing that fucking boulder up that useless hill. actively and resentfully and without even the empty triumph of making it just once to the top.
okay, then, zeus
well
fuck you
*
do you ever love something so much that you can't
do you ever
do you sometimes just
do you
*
How can bone be changed?
By removing it.
*
[dialogue 1]
what is a heart?
four chambers, pumping
what is a chamber?
emptiness enclosed
what enclosing?
atoms and void
where is the ending?
never
*
*
[dialogue 2]
what are you picturing?
a landscape without me
is it beautiful?
it is
*
"To think logically is to be perpetually astonished"
said
the saint
before I destroyed her.
The mind is the body.
I hate this fact.
I love this hate.
*
[dialogue 3]
do you feel better now?
a little
why?
a volcano? a boil?
those are two questions
what is the reason?
what are you asking?
why don't you know?
*
Was it Ovid who said, There is so much wind here stones go blank.
--
anne carson takes no responsibility for this message.
1 "brain taps twice" — 'would be her 50th wedding anniversary today'
2 "how can bone" — 'h & a screenplay scene 1, scene 2'
3 "if you're pushing" — 'seated figure with red angle (1988) by betty goodwin'
4 "to think logically" — 'decreation (an opera in three parts), part one, aphrodite's stroke and dye aria'
5 "was it ovid" — 'would be her 50th wedding anniversary today'
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there.
diagnostic criteria for various depressive disorders require the identification of specific periods of depression. but the concept of having discrete episodes of depression is completely foreign to me. i know that from birth to approximately the age of eight i was not depressed. and there were likely periods from ages eight to perhaps ten when i was not depressed. but since then depression has simply been the default. i am never not depressed. it's merely an issue of quantitative descriptors, of more or less. more or less since we last spoke; more or less than last week; more or less since yesterday.
i am always going to be depressed. not in the sense of a recovering alcoholic who no longer drinks; not asymptomatic; not in remission. not even in the sense of someone who monitors and controls their diabetes with insulin and/or diet. i am always going to be depressed in the same way that sisyphus is always going to be pushing that fucking boulder up that useless hill. actively and resentfully and without even the empty triumph of making it just once to the top.
okay, then, zeus
well
fuck you
*
do you ever love something so much that you can't
do you ever
do you sometimes just
do you
*
How can bone be changed?
By removing it.
How to subtract hell:
faintly.
faintly.
*
[dialogue 1]
what is a heart?
four chambers, pumping
what is a chamber?
emptiness enclosed
what enclosing?
atoms and void
where is the ending?
never
*
If you're pushing, pushing and then it begins to pull you.
If you choose what to undo, if you know how you make that choice.
If conditionals are two kinds of graven and where is a place I can write this.
If you choose what to undo, if you know how you make that choice.
If conditionals are two kinds of graven and where is a place I can write this.
*
[dialogue 2]
what are you picturing?
a landscape without me
is it beautiful?
it is
*
said
the saint
before I destroyed her.
The mind is the body.
I hate this fact.
I love this hate.
*
[dialogue 3]
do you feel better now?
a little
why?
a volcano? a boil?
those are two questions
what is the reason?
what are you asking?
why don't you know?
*
Was it Ovid who said, There is so much wind here stones go blank.
--
anne carson takes no responsibility for this message.
1 "brain taps twice" — 'would be her 50th wedding anniversary today'
2 "how can bone" — 'h & a screenplay scene 1, scene 2'
3 "if you're pushing" — 'seated figure with red angle (1988) by betty goodwin'
4 "to think logically" — 'decreation (an opera in three parts), part one, aphrodite's stroke and dye aria'
5 "was it ovid" — 'would be her 50th wedding anniversary today'
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there.