Tag: Dirty Realism

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Love and Heat Stroke | Prose that Suck

It was the last seven days before the beginning of the month, which meant that the normally aloof hospitality room had detonated into a cacophony of noise; voices calling out to each other across the room, muddled music from the ancient TV tucked into an alcove high on the wall and the bone-jarring sound of hard plastic dominos being slammed down onto the unforgiving metal surface of the card table – “Domino, muthafucka!”

The heat was oppressive, bearing down on me like an interrogator moments away from their coveted confession. Sweat rolled down my back and beaded in the fine hairs of my upper lip producing a salty mustache that I could taste each time I smiled. Outside the shelter the city broiled, topping out at 95° but inside the 125 year old brick storefront it was a holocaust.

It was in this Purgatory that 150 men were packed, as close as lovers, the air fetid from the stench of unwashed crotch and armpits, the spice of anti-bacterial soap, cheap cologne and the wild, sour fecal smell of the mentally ill who’d been sleeping rough for years. I wove my way through the tapestry of foul air and flesh, squeezing my way between crackheads, AIDS patients, schizophrenics, prostitutes, alcoholics, pimps, cons, rapists and pedophiles to find myself on the other side of the room, glazed with the sticky sweat of those I passed.

I wavered for a moment at the edge of the crowd, the perimeter of my face humming with the threat of succumbing to the heat, when I felt the ghostly hands of Grace creep over me. It was not a profound feeling, no, rather one of quite certitude: I love them. For all of their flaws and short comings, for their undeniable humanity, and for the mere fact that we are, together, wading chest deep through the shit and piss of the world – I love them.  They are wholly mine, and I theirs.

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History of Present Complaint | Reviews that Suck

1A few weeks ago I tweeted the #writingcommunity to recommend me their chapbooks; the first response was @HLRWriter who recommended me her CNF chap, History of Present Complaint. 

I read the summary on Amazon, and was interested enough in the premise to buy it. When I went to check out, however, I realized that the book is only offered on Amazon UK – which meant exchange rates and what I knew would be a lengthy shipping time. A little reluctantly, I went through with the transaction, and waited patiently for the book to arrive. 

Arrive it did, a little bit ahead of schedule, on Saturday the 3rd and in my excitement I immediately began inspecting and reading. 

Book Details

History is approximately 86 pages long, and is roughly 5 x 8 inches in dimension. It has a glue binding which held up under (my very intentional) stressful bending, folding and other sorts of general fuck-housing – which means the binding didn’t crack and no pages were lost. 

It has a lovely glossy cover which feels thick and durable, and is printed on reasonably good paper which doesn’t bleed under a highlighter or a fountain pen.  The font is legible – Garamond, I think – doesn’t smear when you run a thumb over it and while it’s just a hair smaller than the standard, it’s still totally readable. Get some fucking glasses.

There is a content / trigger warning directly after the title page. 

The contents is beautifully laid out and shows the care that was taken to put this work together. 

DO NOT SKIP THE EDITOR’S NOTE. It details how the book is structured – as it’s not linear – and you will, at first, need this as a reference point as you make your way through the book. 

Contents

The book details the story of a woman who experiences a psychotic break and is (involuntarily?) admitted to a psych ward in the UK. The story is presented in stream-of-consciousness style which leaps back and forth in time to events that happened prior to the break, the break itself and what happens afterward.

Review

Reviewing this book is complicated; I have so many thoughts about it that I’m going to need to break the review into bite size portions. 

  1. Time and Space 

Non-linear story telling is easy to fuck up – just look at Netflix’s version of The Witcher (I said what I said, motherfuckers). It’s significantly more difficult to do this on paper than it is on film – there are no cinematic cues that let you know you’ve jumped backwards or forwards in time.

HLR did this masterfully; she let’s readers know where they are in her journey by titling sections and poems with the headings Present Complaint, History of Present Complaint and Post Complaint – the definitions of which are in the Editor’s Note that I told you not to skip, you asshole. All in all, the transition between time and space is seamless and makes sense. She makes a notoriously difficult style of story telling look like child’s play. 

2. Style and Content

Complaint blurs the lines between genres; part creative non-fiction, part poetry, part stream of consciousness journaling which culminates in an incredibly authentic read that puts you inside her head as she’s going through these monumental crises.  

What’s really unique about this is that – in the editor’s note that I fucking told you to read – HLR doesn’t say this is her story… she says it’s YOURS. “YOU suffered an acute psychotic episode, during which YOU were detained under Section 135 of the Mental Health Act.” 

Very early on the boundaries between reader and writer blur, and you begin taking on her story as your own until you’re jolted back into your own reality when you realize “holy shit, I’ve felt that way before” and then are lulled back into the story again. 

I want to point out a fucking BREATH-TAKING line on page 44, “You dragged myself to the kitchen and stood in the doorway.”  Full stop. Read that again, do it slowly and hold that line for a few moments. You dragged myself. This is a mind blowing line; one that holds both the duality of reader and author and the coalescing of them simul-fucking-taneously! 

There are pages and pages of lines like these that both parallel and juxtapose author and reader that make you stop, and think, and wonder. 

3. Theme

I want to begin by saying this; you need to be mindful of how you approach this work. What I mean to say is this: it’s not a fucking sideshow for you to get your jollies off.

Complaint is important for so many reasons:

  • It restores humanity, which has been robbed by society, and the System, to those who live with mental-illness.
  • It depicts how very broken the Mental Health system is; simultaneously abusing and neglecting those who have the misfortune to find themselves jailed within it.

Overall

The testitucular fortitude required to be this honest and this vulnerable is Herculean – and HLR fucking NAILED IT.   I want to both acknowledge and thank her for that bravery. 

This is the book that Girl, Interrupted should have been – could have been – had Vintage had an ounce of backbone and didn’t neuter it to hell and back.

Is History of Present Complaint worth the exchange rate, and the long shipping time? Hell. Yes. I would buy if it was written in shit on a cardboard box. I would wait forever for this. I will re-read it fifty times over. 

Now… don’t be a bitch, and buy the shit. 

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Trash | Poems that Suck

Who the fuck 
are you anyway, 
that my blood 
should turn from
rust to fire
at the mere 
closeness of you?

And who the fuck
am I becoming
with the shiver
of every orgasm, 
under the pressure
of your lips 
on my own?

Who am I?
Because I seem
to have lost
track - seemed to
have forgotten that
I'm only a: 

broken girl,
a fast girl, 
a foul-mouthed girl.

Who the fuck
am I? Because
when I look
in your eye,
and see myself
reflected there, 
I'm not trash
            anymore.
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Oh Shit | Poems that Suck

I forgot I called the
plumber because the 
sinks weren't draining
properly in my house. 

After a strong cup of
coffee, and about twenty
menthol cigarettes, I felt
the tell-tale rattling in

my guts that I have to
take a monstrous shit.
So I ambled to the bathroom, 
produced a bowl-buster, 

marveled at its length
like a proud parent, and
then - without a thought -
flushed my shit baby away. 

About ten seconds later I
heard a horrified scream
from the basement, and 
immediately remembered....

                      Oh shit. The plumber.
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Pinpricks | Poems that Suck

You were drunk on fine spirits,
on the precipice of belligerence,
trapping me between your body
and the door - its knob in my back.

"What the fuck are you doing?"
I asked calmly cautious, but 
could see that your pupils
were pinpricks, even in the dim.

"Tell me all about it. Every 
little detail. I need to know
the who, what, why, how, when
of that stupid video."

And I realized I was being
mocked; for talking too much, 
for needing someone to share
stream of consciousness with.

It confirmed what I'd suspected
for so long; that I'm not human
to you - just a possession that 
you can molest whenever you want.
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Unraveled | Poems that Suck

There's a flap of flesh
 along side my thumbnail.
  I wonder what would happen
   if I pulled at it?

I imagine it would cleave
 the skin, running all the 
  way to the bone, like some
   wayward thread.

And what would I find, there,
 hidden beneath the flesh? A 
  lifetime of regret, lies, doubt
    and self loathing.

Best to leave it alone.
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Tending Bar | Poems that Suck

Don't come to me if you
don't want a straight answer.

Don't come to me if you
want to be coddled.

Don't come to me if you
don't want practical advice.

Don't come to me if you
just want me to agree with you.

Don't come to me if you
can't take it raw. 

I'm not your fucking bartender, baby.
I'm not serving you a chaser after this shit.
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Silence | Poems that Suck

Maybe I don't like the silence
 because it reminds me of an ex
  who used to disappear for days at
   a time, saying that the aliens had
    abducted him. 

Every time he'd reappear it was
 with some new girl, hanging off his
  dick - and I knew he'd slept with her
   so that he'd have a place to sleep, and 
     food to eat. 

I could never understand why
 he wouldn't come to me to ask
  for these things, knowing that 
   he'd never have to pay for them
    with sex. 

The last time he disappeared
 for months, turning up on the 
  opposite coast so that he could 
   "make it," but came back home with
     a pregnant fiancé.
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Busted | Poems that Suck

I weave these ribbons
between the hollows 
of my bones,

sewing together the
frayed flesh that
you stripped bare
in my pursuit of you.

If I replace my heart
with a Cuckoo clock,
and my mind with a 
mocking bird,

then maybe I'll 
sleep during these
fitful nights 
of uncertainty.