Cat the Beatnik.net

<– Not a cult leader

So I took several hours of testing a couple of weeks ago and was allowed to finally read the results of it today. I was sorely disappointed and mildly offended. I am apparently immature, egocentric (okay, that’s accurate), severely depressed, illogically anxious, overly emotional, and dreamy. As if all of this weren’t enough, I also got the following sentence:

While Cat reported no suicidal ideation, her admiration of Sylvia Plath, her feelings of hopelessness and the level of her depression suggest the need for ongoing monitoring of her thoughts.

>.<

Who you admire or read for their artistic and writing abilities does not reflect any idea of my mimicking their behavior. If I said I admired Shakespeare, would people worry about my becoming bisexual? No. If I happened to like Nirvana (which I do, lots and lots), will people assume I’ll shoot myself in the head? Probably not. If I like Britney Spears (which I don’t, not and not), will others wait for me to give up underwear, pop out kids, and date K-Fed? No. So don’t hate on Sylvia.

Everyone’s always hating on Sylvia. Yes, she stuck her head in a gas oven. That was probably not the best idea. But there have been hundreds of famous figures who have committed suicide, drug-addicted 70s singers and starving-themselves artists, but nobody seems to point the finger at them, just Plath.

But Plath had a way with words that I envy to an extreme. Her poetry has layers, one after another, and even if you have nothing in common with the subject matter, you somehow relate to it.

Here is one of my favorites of hers. You may have read it.

“Lady Lazarus”

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.
Gentleman , 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 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 on 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.

So, yes, she tried to kill herself. Several times, in fact. And yet she humors herself with this idea at thirty. “What a trash to annihilate each decade.” “Like the cat I have nine times to die.” “This is number three.” Humorous. Satirical. Yet serious. “Herr Lucifer,” she cries sarcastically, as she is the scary killer woman, the main attraction, the thing – not a person – on stage, thriving, writhing. She is a nothing. But to me, she is a something. She’s the best poet I’ve ever read.

People have never understood art. Throughout the ages, the artists and the art-lovers have always been ridiculed, pitied, and worried about. But when I read poems, the words dance. It’s like a ballet in my head. When I can write something that flows like that, it’s climactic. There are fireworks in my brain, and I momentarily go insane because that, that is the goal. To make something that explodes. Something crazy. I love the crazy.

But that doesn’t make me crazy.

…Does this make any sense?

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: Who’s someone “weird” who you love?

Sincerely,
Cat