i have done it again.

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath


I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——


A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot


A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.


Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——


The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.


Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me



And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.


This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.


What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see


Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies


These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,


Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.


The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut


As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.


Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.


I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.


It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical


Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:


‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge


For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.


And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood


Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.


I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby


That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.


Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——


A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.


Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.


Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.



Lady Lazarus is a dramatic, suicidal, and very controversial poem due to plath's use of nazi/holocaust symbolism. however, after listening to one of her interviews, she explained how she found the use of historical references to be compelling when sharing personal information. many have found her references of the holocaust, in her poetry, a gross and egregious abuse to those who were tortured to a level of imcomprehension.

here, i have trouble coming to a personal conclusion because i love plath's ability to candidly and without inhibition demonstrate her feelings of herself, others current emotional station. although, she suffered from crippling depression and did, ultimately, kill herself i find her use of genocidal techniques somehow fitting unto her mental state.

the holocaust was a time of persecution: loss of family, dignity, humanity, and physical abuse. having said this, psychologically speaking severe depression is also an attack on both the mind and body. a tortured soul undergoes many different phases while the psyche can take only so much before one may begin to self-medicate, self-harm, or even take on suicidal ideation. still, it is hard to defend the use of something so enormous as genocide to compare one, individual's struggle against the demon of depression.

What do you think?

Pregnant Men Against Abortion - that will be the day.

Strict Abortion Measures Enacted in Oklahoma
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
NEW YORK TIMES
Published: April 27, 2010

The Oklahoma Legislature voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to override vetoes of two highly restrictive abortion measures, one making it a law that women undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion.

Though other states have passed similar measures forcing women to have ultrasounds, Oklahoma’s law goes further, requiring a doctor or technician to set up the monitor where the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims.

The second measure passed into law Tuesday protects doctors from malpractice suits if they decide not to inform the parents of a unborn baby that the fetus has birth defects. The intent of the bill is to prevent parents from later suing doctors who withhold information to try to influence them against having an abortion.

Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, vetoed both bills last week. The ultrasound law, he said, was flawed because it did not exempt rape and incest victims and was an unconstitutional intrusion into a woman’s privacy. He painted the other measure as immoral.

“It is unconscionable to grant a physician legal protection to mislead or misinform pregnant women in an effort to impose his or her personal beliefs on a patient,” Mr. Henry said.

The Republican majorities in both houses, however, saw things differently. On Monday, the House voted overwhelmingly to override the vetoes, and the Senate followed suit at 10:42 a.m. Tuesday, making the two measures law.

The ultrasound law was part of a bill that was struck down by the state courts last August because it violated a clause in the Oklahoma Constitution that requires bills to deal with only one subject. Republican lawmakers vowed at the time to pass it again.

This year, Republican leaders passed five separate antiabortion bills to satisfy the courts’ concerns. Mr. Henry signed one into law: it required that clinics post signs stating a woman cannot be forced to have an abortion, that an abortion cannot be performed until a woman gives her voluntary consent, and that abortions based on a child’s gender are illegal.

Two other antiabortion bills are still working their way through the legislature. One would force women to fill out a lengthy questionnaire about their reasons for seeking an abortion and then post statistics online based on the answers. The other restricts insurance coverage for the procedure.

Though many states have passed similar laws aimed at curbing abortion, with Tuesday’s action, Oklahoma appears to have become the most hostile to women seeking to end a pregnancy, said Dionne Scott, a spokeswoman for the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group for abortion rights based in New York.

“It’s the most extreme ultrasound requirement in the country,” she said.

___________________________________________
These long forms of statistics, ultra-sound tests, and witholding of information are tactics of fear-mongering used by the pro-life movement. Moreover, how can the legislature actually try to expunge the "rape and incest" addendum necessary to help rid the scarring of abuse a woman or a young girl has suffered? Who are these people who think they can control the bodies of others? A fetus is not a living being until it is OUTSIDE the body.

These people should be ashamed of themselves. This is nonsense - Total hogwash.

cracking skulls...

it's 8.41 am, i have a little while before i need to get ready to leave for school. but, sometimes i don't want to leave the house, especially lately when i feel so alone. in my mind space people just plain suck. no one is who they claim to really be, and i wind up simply feeling let down. or, is it i'm just too gullible or stupid? yes, it's true i become attached to others but isn't that a part of humanity and the human condition? anthropologically, aren't we meant to gather to form communities?

i suppose i'm more of a loner than a group person, and maybe this is due to my being an only child who didn't have friends until fourth grade. it could be my strange (and sometimes not-so strange) up-bringing of the not-so-unusual divorced parents but also the inclusion of my aunt and uncle who were the free-thinking, ultra, liberal hippies. as i got older, and my father remarried a horrorshow of a woman i began recognizing his limitations and emotional incapacities. i began wishing my uncle was my father - i was already close with my uncle but the diminshment of my relationship with my father only solidified my relationship with my uncle further. however, i've learned over the years that my uncle is my uncle; he is not my father and we have a very special bond.

probably nothing i said above makes sense since i haven't laid a contextual foundation but, for a long while i spent most of my time in the company of adults. i did what i wanted when i wanted and was wiser above my years except once i became an adult i wanted only to be a child. oh, the irony.

so, now here i am - alone, but not alone. i feel myself on the precipice of making a big change. what could be greater than opening oneself to a better life? and, yet still i'm not quite ready to take that leap - what if i crack my skull on the way down? or, what if i don't and i find happiness?

it's really not so deep. literally nor figuratively.

as tiger woods would say, "just do it," except we all know what he's been up to lately.

fortunately, i don't have his vice.

instead i'll stick to my own and take a double Jameson neat.

what happens when?

what happens when--
you're no longer a darling?
instead, shaken by a foresaken friendship.
the truth is as simple as
black coffee.
i always hated her soy,
extra foam lattes, anyway.
maybe if the glass never gave way
the shards of secrets in her milk
wouldn't be half as lovely.
but darwin had his say--
and she's left to cushion what's
left of his stay.

bewitched and beaten

it's been awhile since i first posted on here (then again, i am new to this whole blogging experience). and, my last blog was not terribly positive but i'm trying to work toward a more positive headspace. i wrote a poem a few weeks ago about the loss of my father but have lost my journal.

blogging, to me, seems an odd technological venture - that is, journaling for viewers. I have piles of journals since the age of 6 but i huddled, protectively over them as if they were state's secrets. when, truly, who cared what eddie had said to veronica about me when they were dancing at the 8th grade formal? haha. foolishness.

so, i think i may remember a bit of the poem.




her vicious voice shook the house
the window panes rattled from the chill
we children took to the basement with
blankets and candy for fear of her wrath
i remember asking him for kudos bars--
hoping they'd sustain me if i was ever
locked in.
his kindness was his weakness and his
weakness was also women - any woman.
we children were lost and unprotected
by a father, who like a snake only stood
when charmed.
still, the house held white magic--
and, through a trap door, into the garden,
under a trellis and along peppermint striped steps
we were led to a house of candy--
where we were made into gingerbread
children who made sweaters for Santa Claus
and The Gap.
I wished for the comfort of my father.
but he was in the urn waiting to be bewitched.