05-31-2013, 01:07 AM
As a psychiatrist,
you have to know, with the way you dress,
how you torture men.
And you have to know
that men would have it no other way.
In the middle of the woods,
is that where we stopped last time?
All this stopping and starting gets us
nowhere.
Why don't we talk about you?
I'm only deflecting;
or you don't want to?...
"Enough of this Anne Sexton shit"?
Have you ever read her;
or are you just deflecting?
I know I'm not Robert Lowell,
nor would I want to be.
We both know that I write
and I'm just searching for things to write about.
Through searching you,
I'm searching myself.
...there was a clearing.
There's always a clearing:
this is the part you're waiting for.
Are you writing this,
or am I?
Where did you grow up?
Are you happy with your husband,
I'm not.
Where were we?
In the middle of the woods,
there was a clearing...
Were you there?
Why do you want to know these things;
do you care about me
or is it that you're just getting paid to care?
I care about you.
Is that wrong of me?
No, I remember...
A clearing in the woods;
and all of a sudden something happened...
Are you writing this down;
or do I have to wait till I get home?
Maybe it's just that I don't recall what happened next,
and that's the problem.
If you want to know,
you have to hypnotize me.
Or do you think that's just some erotic thing,
this hypnosis,
that I hope to get off on?
I can't be held accountable for what I do
in an unconscious state.
And there's that vow of confidentiality
that you're subject to.
Yes, I know you're not a priest,
but I know the rules.
If we're not going by the rules
then let me ask you...
What does it mean to you,
this clearing in the woods?
What makes you think...
what makes me think there's any relevance
to this distant time and place
that was evidently so unimportant
that I can't even recall what happened next?
Don't you think it's more relevant to consider
what's going on right now?
You know everything that's happened to me,
and everything I can remember I've felt and thought
from May 11th 1991
to today, and what's came of all those conscious,
describable reflections and events.
If there's any more progress to be made,
shouldn't we attempt this hypnosis,
despite my motives...
or talk some more about you
and why you distrust my motives,
despite nothing I've consciously said or done
that's brought you to this disfavor
for a technique you at first so avidly
insisted we attempt?
Is it that I've changed my mind...
and changed minds mean only a setback
in your solidly thought out
psychiatric plan?
Is change bad?
Has the extent of your influence
brought out something in yourself
that my personal experience has no business
being involved with?
How can we both be humans
when one of us is legally immune
from any natural relation
to the narrative you seemingly yearn
for me to tell?
To have talked this long,
you've certainly taken part in some changes along the way.
At least for one of us.
No?
I admit,
I didn't think so either.
In that clearing,
in the woods,
there was a dead deer;
dead for years.
I knew it was dead for years
because it had a sign on it
that said so.
Do you believe more in signs, or symbols;
or have we not been reading the same books?
It's all one to me:
books and life;
the books I haven't read.
The books you haven't read
that I'm alluding to.
You're the doctor.
I believe cannibals had left the bones there;
Yes; deer that eat deer.
That is honestly how I felt at the time:
would you rather I lie?
Then a truck went by;
there was a road in the middle
of this clearing in the woods.
I've been wondering where this road led
for years.
This happened in real life, not in
the dream;
only my friend was there,
in real life, not in the dream.
In my dreams I'm always
alone.
Yes. Everyone's always alone in their dreams.
All the other characters you see or hear
and interact with:
they're all you.
Just like Shakespeare is Hamlet,
and King Lear;
and Dostoevsky is Raskolnikov
and Sonia, too,
and Stavrogin and the little girl he diddled.
And the serpent, and the garden,
and the rope he hanged himself with, too.
Oh, you disagree?
See: We have read the same books.
What did I tell you...
I know enough about you
to say what I need to say
that'll set you up to say
what'll set up my punchlines.
...No. Everything isn't a joke to me.
I'm quite capable of taking things seriously,
a bit too seriously in fact;
otherwise I wouldn't need to be here.
Nor would you.
We know what we know, and
that's the whole problem.
The more we know, the worse off
we are, for unlawful
carnal knowledge is the Knowledge of Good and Evil:
the very tree itself.
...Where were we: In a clearing in the woods;
there was no road, and I had no friend.
There was a cart, and an old, rain sodden
Boy Scouts of America Handbook,
thick and dry as only rain sodden pages are dry;
and I put the handbook and the deer skull in the cart,
and wheel toward the other side of the clearing.
Though midway, I find myself back where I had started:
never having crossed to the other side,
or into the trees on the distant end,
they didn't exist for me in my dream
and what I saw over there was only a vision,
within which I couldn't move in.
But could only return again and again
to the place where I started.
I even thought, and knew, this in the dream.
So that, in fact, is all I can remember.
If ever I have crossed over to that other side,
and there is where we can find out all
that we desire,
maybe, if you'd insist again
to use the hypnosis therapy...
But if not...what more do you expect me to say?
You're the one in charge after all.
you have to know, with the way you dress,
how you torture men.
And you have to know
that men would have it no other way.
In the middle of the woods,
is that where we stopped last time?
All this stopping and starting gets us
nowhere.
Why don't we talk about you?
I'm only deflecting;
or you don't want to?...
"Enough of this Anne Sexton shit"?
Have you ever read her;
or are you just deflecting?
I know I'm not Robert Lowell,
nor would I want to be.
We both know that I write
and I'm just searching for things to write about.
Through searching you,
I'm searching myself.
...there was a clearing.
There's always a clearing:
this is the part you're waiting for.
Are you writing this,
or am I?
Where did you grow up?
Are you happy with your husband,
I'm not.
Where were we?
In the middle of the woods,
there was a clearing...
Were you there?
Why do you want to know these things;
do you care about me
or is it that you're just getting paid to care?
I care about you.
Is that wrong of me?
No, I remember...
A clearing in the woods;
and all of a sudden something happened...
Are you writing this down;
or do I have to wait till I get home?
Maybe it's just that I don't recall what happened next,
and that's the problem.
If you want to know,
you have to hypnotize me.
Or do you think that's just some erotic thing,
this hypnosis,
that I hope to get off on?
I can't be held accountable for what I do
in an unconscious state.
And there's that vow of confidentiality
that you're subject to.
Yes, I know you're not a priest,
but I know the rules.
If we're not going by the rules
then let me ask you...
What does it mean to you,
this clearing in the woods?
What makes you think...
what makes me think there's any relevance
to this distant time and place
that was evidently so unimportant
that I can't even recall what happened next?
Don't you think it's more relevant to consider
what's going on right now?
You know everything that's happened to me,
and everything I can remember I've felt and thought
from May 11th 1991
to today, and what's came of all those conscious,
describable reflections and events.
If there's any more progress to be made,
shouldn't we attempt this hypnosis,
despite my motives...
or talk some more about you
and why you distrust my motives,
despite nothing I've consciously said or done
that's brought you to this disfavor
for a technique you at first so avidly
insisted we attempt?
Is it that I've changed my mind...
and changed minds mean only a setback
in your solidly thought out
psychiatric plan?
Is change bad?
Has the extent of your influence
brought out something in yourself
that my personal experience has no business
being involved with?
How can we both be humans
when one of us is legally immune
from any natural relation
to the narrative you seemingly yearn
for me to tell?
To have talked this long,
you've certainly taken part in some changes along the way.
At least for one of us.
No?
I admit,
I didn't think so either.
In that clearing,
in the woods,
there was a dead deer;
dead for years.
I knew it was dead for years
because it had a sign on it
that said so.
Do you believe more in signs, or symbols;
or have we not been reading the same books?
It's all one to me:
books and life;
the books I haven't read.
The books you haven't read
that I'm alluding to.
You're the doctor.
I believe cannibals had left the bones there;
Yes; deer that eat deer.
That is honestly how I felt at the time:
would you rather I lie?
Then a truck went by;
there was a road in the middle
of this clearing in the woods.
I've been wondering where this road led
for years.
This happened in real life, not in
the dream;
only my friend was there,
in real life, not in the dream.
In my dreams I'm always
alone.
Yes. Everyone's always alone in their dreams.
All the other characters you see or hear
and interact with:
they're all you.
Just like Shakespeare is Hamlet,
and King Lear;
and Dostoevsky is Raskolnikov
and Sonia, too,
and Stavrogin and the little girl he diddled.
And the serpent, and the garden,
and the rope he hanged himself with, too.
Oh, you disagree?
See: We have read the same books.
What did I tell you...
I know enough about you
to say what I need to say
that'll set you up to say
what'll set up my punchlines.
...No. Everything isn't a joke to me.
I'm quite capable of taking things seriously,
a bit too seriously in fact;
otherwise I wouldn't need to be here.
Nor would you.
We know what we know, and
that's the whole problem.
The more we know, the worse off
we are, for unlawful
carnal knowledge is the Knowledge of Good and Evil:
the very tree itself.
...Where were we: In a clearing in the woods;
there was no road, and I had no friend.
There was a cart, and an old, rain sodden
Boy Scouts of America Handbook,
thick and dry as only rain sodden pages are dry;
and I put the handbook and the deer skull in the cart,
and wheel toward the other side of the clearing.
Though midway, I find myself back where I had started:
never having crossed to the other side,
or into the trees on the distant end,
they didn't exist for me in my dream
and what I saw over there was only a vision,
within which I couldn't move in.
But could only return again and again
to the place where I started.
I even thought, and knew, this in the dream.
So that, in fact, is all I can remember.
If ever I have crossed over to that other side,
and there is where we can find out all
that we desire,
maybe, if you'd insist again
to use the hypnosis therapy...
But if not...what more do you expect me to say?
You're the one in charge after all.