Anxiety Related Disorder (44/101; new draft, explicit)

[thoke]

Anxiety Related Disorder (44/101*)

“…there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

Stupid paper bags of drugs
I empty every month.
They haunt me like white sheets
splattered in my virgin killer dreams.

Bloody bowel and fucking stomach
dig into my world, rattle my skull
and unearth a soft spot for soft spots
on people made of felt, sponge and silk:

speckled fawns grazing at my grass
in sleep where I am innocent,
unconstrained by pop psychology,
free to pop the heads from dandelions

and get drunk on the white sap
and paint the meadow red with horror,
bad sex and wrong nipples, skin
stretched out beneath the dirty clouds.

Those clouds are Plath’s sheep
and they rain ticks into boxes
and they disturb themselves with talk
and in their black slots there will be

new pills in paper bags; another
white ghost for another young
problem made so by the weather
spitting blood into my eye sockets.


________________
*See '1/101': viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8708


[As well as what the title says, this poem is also about so-called 'paraphilia'.]

[thoke]

Bump.

[manfriday]

The opening quote is really great, because it calls into question the negative associations people have with mental disorders, and then the poem describes one. The drugs make their user happily delirious am I right? That's where the fawns come in? The pills themselves are very unromantic in their 'stupid paper bags', an image I enjoy. The "soft spot for soft spots" I found ambiguous though, perhaps it is meant to be. I can only guess that you are talking about a happy place for 'soft' minds - minds that have gone soft, as if starting to rot. Another stanza might make the whole thing more lucid (though you are dealing with something decidedly un-lucid), perhaps embellishing on the image of Plath's sheep?

I'm new to this game though, and find these crits really hard to do, so take what I say with a BIG pinch of.

[ray miller]

You are shameless!

You are on repeat prescriptions, you have bad dreams, you've a predilection for deer,an identity crisis,you think you need new medication and you question your diagnosis.Anxiety Disorder might be putting it mildly.

I liked the first 2 lines but I think you ought to have virgin dreams or killer dreams, never both. A lot of it is obscure but parcels in black slots particularly so. If I just take the first and last two lines of the poem
it makes sense so it's kind of annoying that there's this stuff in the middle.

[BenJohnson]

I like the first stanza although maybe virgin killing dreams? There is a hint of Psycho in there, though no mention of shower curtains.

The next stanza threw me, suddenly very pastoral. I always considered Plath's sheep as something rather frightening, though they seem not to be here.

The last stanza feels a bit awkward although I understand what you are saying with one exception, why is it a young problem?

[thoke]

Thanks, manfriday. That's not quite what I was getting at, but it's useful to know that I haven't made things very easy for the reader.

Ray, your interpretation is more accurate, but unfortunately I'm not shameless. I see what you mean about the stuff in the middle. I think I'll try and expand the poem and make things a bit clearer. The "black slots" image is borrowed from 'Wuthering Heights' by Sylvia Plath.

Ben, i like the phrase "virgin killer" - I got it from a provocative album cover, which you can see if you google it. I imagine it's a fairly crap album. I think you're right about the sheep: I'll try to make them more frightening.

It's a young problem because... well, I should probably make my mind up about this. Or just delete the word. I have a few different things in mind. One thing is that the conditions I've addressed were "discovered" (or invented?) relatively recently.

Thanks for the comments, you've convinced me to expand the whole thing and make it less cryptic.

Ben

[David]

Paraphilia opened up a whole new world to me, once I'd googled it, but I can't square it with Martin Luther King or anxiety disorders. I'd put that down to ignorance on my part.

It's not really conveying that much to me at the moment though.

Cheers

David

[BenJohnson]

That is one disturbing album cover.

I didn't associate the black slots with Plath's sheep possibly because I thought we had moved on. I was imagining this to refer to your prescription waiting in slots.

You are right that it is 'young' in that it is finally recognised, but old as it people suffered from it without recognition, it is that new old thing.

I look forward to the edit.

[thoke]

Okay, new draft. I've succeeded in making it longer, but I don't know whether the meaning is any clearer. I'm not sure about the new ending. What do you think?

I plan to keep rewriting this one, so the new version is a transitional one. Please let me know what is working and what isn't.

Thanks,

Ben

[ray miller]

Hi, still have little idea what you are talking about. Is it a particular form of paraphilia that you or someone else indulges in, or that you're trying to point out?I preferred the original, to be honest, as it left more to the imagination. Did you know there are Adjustment Disorders? I just ask in relation to the Martin Luther King quote. I meant that your bump was shameless.

[thoke]

Hi, still have little idea what you are talking about. Is it a particular form of paraphilia that you or someone else indulges in, or that you're trying to point out?

I was hoping I'd made this clear enough in the poem. I'll keep trying.

I preferred the original, to be honest, as it left more to the imagination.

I'm trying not to do that.

Did you know there are Adjustment Disorders? I just ask in relation to the Martin Luther King quote.

No, but having briefly googled it, I think what I'm trying to say is that the anxiety disorder in the poem may infact be an adjustment disorder. There are a few things being adjusted to: other, more physical illnesses; but more significantly, the dodgy sex dream stuff (which I am trying to be a bit cryptic about) and the attitudes of other people to it -- attitudes which may or may not be justified. The relevance of the King quote is that i'm describing a case where the masses may have got things wrong, in which case maladjustment is an appropriate response, not a pathological one.

I meant that your bump was shameless.

Oh, yes. Well, this poem is important to me and I want to get it right.

Cheers,
Ben

[ray miller]

I should probably refrain from this after so many glasses of wine, but to hell with that. What I think King is referring to when he speaks of healthy maladjustment is situations which are well established, the norm in society; for example, and maybe not the best one, Reality TV,ought to be resisted down to the last. He was most likely speaking of the power imbalance between the whites and blacks.Things, anyhow, which are embedded and mainstream.You seem to be appropriating his dictum to a sphere which is quite personal and I wonder at the wisdom of that, not to sat the motive. I only care, I suppose, 'cause you're a Dylan fan.No, I don't mean that, I wish you well.

[thoke]

I should probably refrain from this after so many glasses of wine, but to hell with that.

Right on!

What I think King is referring to when he speaks of healthy maladjustment is situations which are well established, the norm in society; for example, and maybe not the best one, Reality TV,ought to be resisted down to the last. He was most likely speaking of the power imbalance between the whites and blacks.Things, anyhow, which are embedded and mainstream.You seem to be appropriating his dictum to a sphere which is quite personal and I wonder at the wisdom of that, not to sat the motive.

I'm sure King wouldn't like what I've done with his words, but when he uttered them he was not just expressing a personal preference. He was strongly implying that, as a matter of fact, some forms of so-called 'maladjustment' are an appropriate response to a unjust social order. His preferences were his own, but facts don't belong to anybody. His quote is up for grabs because it eloquently expresses an impersonal fact about the world: that some instances of what we have a tendency to call 'maladjustment' are actually appropriate ways of engaging with an imperfect and improvable world.

I have a strong suspicion that, as a matter of fact, there is a problem with the social order that I find myself in, to which it is appropriate for me to respond in a way that might be described as maladjusted. I think it's quite reasonable to wonder at the wisdom of this suspicion. But my motives are sound: I care about the truth, so it isn't in my interest to shield myself from reason or to behave in ways that don't conform to reality.

I only care, I suppose, 'cause you're a Dylan fan.No, I don't mean that, I wish you well.

I'm not sure what you're saying there... I don't have my wine goggles with me.

Ben