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She's cold,
The queen. Cold and beautiful:
Diamond-encrusted, white lead-dusted,
Elegant.
Gaunt.
Elephantine.
Gaunt.
Elephantine.
She owns my world.
She wants
To be true. I tried to touch her
With my tongue, but she made it numb:
Antiseptic.
Antiquated.
Epileptic.
Antiquated.
Epileptic.
She haunts
The space
like we do: organs churning
Red and groaning, head gramophoning
Desire.
Ire.
Destitute.
Ire.
Destitute.
She feels small.
I try
To be clean. But only pity in a
Pampering preen goads her to blush and
swell between:
“Victim.”
Viciously.
Timid.
Viciously.
Timid.
She screams.
This is the image that came into mind as I tried to find a way to describe the essence of self-pampering victimization: a queen – coated in lovely, poisonous flake-white paint, opulent and sickly all at once, too-well cared for to feel genuinely purposeful or self-assuredly proud – who can't come except by the fawning whisper of the word “victim” in her ear. Her lover is there (it seems) out of servile obligation more so than compassion. And the ambiguity of emotion in her scream is as much in her heart as in those who hear its cry (pleasure is the guiltiest sensation for those who pity themselves needlessly).
ReplyDeleteReading this sort of gives me the chills. (Note line 4 of every stanza: the first word breaking into two twisted offspring. Brrr … I like this word-play.)
*Thanks to Cristy (dancer {thinking of Selina}), Julie (bus smoke, tip-ship, hat-boys, dust mask), Dani (mounted dear) – & whoever painted the lady's profile with white lead – for making this collage full.
The poem seems to perfectly epitomize the type of self pity that develops into self-victimization. The intensity of the emotion that goes into isolation and the feeling of loneliness with all the trappings of beauty creates the awesome dichotomy between the power she has and the weakness she finds in herself. The universal emotion of self pity and the natural human tendency to feel like a victim is taken down to the smallest level of a single person who has created her own loneliness by refusing to see anyone else. The narcissism inherent in her self pity and ambiguous negative emotion makes her extremely human, while the power she holds and her station in life push both the reader and the speaker away, leaving her as alone as she thinks she is. As a character, she localizes the universal pain of feeling alone and, instead of taking responsibility, turning herself into a victim.
ReplyDeleteIs the shape of the poem supposed to resemble how a heart beat would appear on a heart rate monitor, which also represents the internal screaming coming from the speaker's heart?
ReplyDelete-Chloe
Naw -- I progressively indented the first 3 lines of each stanza to aid eye-flow forward; split the next 3 lines of each to emphasize my faux-etymologies of the words Elegant, Antiseptic, Desire, and Victim (e.g. {viciously}-->Vic-tim<--{timid}); and used the last line of each stanza to bring the reader's eye back to the beginning.
DeleteAnd the screaming is literally (and ambiguously -- with pleasure or pain or both?) coming out of her mouth. If it were in her heart, it wouldn't be ambiguous: it's conventionally bad when your heart screams.
This poem creates a paradox between the toxicity of putting up a facade of beauty versus a form of beauty at its most naturalistic state. Whereas lack of self-adornment regarding makeup and other measures of beautification is liberating, the act of beautifying oneself traps them beneath layers of a person they are not. They are being victimized by what their mind tells them is the “societal norm”; what they have been raised to look like. The juxtaposition between the “queen” being cold and beautiful in the first two lines shows that her constant pampering in attempt to better her look has made her cold, distant, and in a way, fake or untrue. Another interesting contrast is created in lines 3-6, as the lady is described as both gaunt and elephantine - nearly two polar opposites. This chasm between the two images could represent the expanding distance between her real self and the person she is making herself out to be. In lines 8-10, the speaker wants her and tries to touch her, but feels numb, possibly from her icey emotions and unhappiness with her image or partly because she is so far removed from her natural warm self. The word play can be seen once again here, as antiseptic divides into two completely different words (epilepsy being a very important one reinforces the image of numbness and loss of feeling). The next word play occurs when destitute and ire stem from desire, conveying that the desire for beauty has left her lacking greater necessities, such as her own individuality. “She feels small” sums up all of her inner ambiguity and lack of confidence. Finally, in the last lines, the speaker watches helplessly as the girl is victimized by her own desires to be attractive, emphasizing that pity can only do so much. Finally, the girl screams, bringing out her final statement of anguish regarding her circumstances.
ReplyDeleteNot how I meant it, but an interesting reading.
DeleteThe poem is more literally about a queen -- who can only be sexually aroused by forcing her servant to pity her, to treat her like she's the victim, rather than the victimizer.
Interesting, and thanks for the clarification! A bit of role reversal with the most powerful woman desiring to be powerless during sexual acts. Almost Freudian in a sense, as she is brought down to a more primitive state.
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ReplyDeleteThe poem “Victim” immediately caught my attention because of the unusual structure. The structure of this poem causes the reader to follow the Queen’s habits and characteristics in an unconventional manner, which parallels the Queen’s unorthodox desire. This poem and the meaning behind the poem is the epitome of “you want what you can’t have” which I naturally relate to.
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