| Sunday, March 01, 2009 |
| autopsy |
'Autopsy' comes from two Greek words meaning 'to see for oneself', and writing often feels to me like an autopsy; it feels like I'm assisting at my own. Much of it is a matter of holding the knife properly, being careful not to cut too deeply or flay too much, too quickly.
(I do feel naked, often; I feel naked and splayed and laid bare by writing here. It's my own choice: to open myself like a book, to let eager hand and eye unveil me.)
Sometimes I feel like a science experiment, like I'm something he dissects and pins back despite my bleeding.
Or it's worse. I am the experiment and he peels everything away and pins me back not despite but because of the bleeding, and he touches and probes all those places because he knows that his deft and skilled touch placed exactly there will make me bleed.
It's a cover of sorts for his own bleeding, but also his desire to cut me.
What kind of beast would turn its life into words?
What atonement is this all about?
- and yet, writing words like these, I'm also living.
Adrienne Rich, 21 Love Poems, VII. Labels: meta, obscurity |
posted by O @ 21:19   |
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| 4 Comments: |
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In medieval and early modern medicine, the medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis and its congeners Hirudo verbana, Hirudo troctina and Hirudo orientalis) was used to remove blood from a patient as part of a process to "balance" the "humors" that, according to Galen, must be kept in balance in order for the human body to function properly. (The four humors of ancient medical philosophy were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.) Any sickness that caused the subject's skin to become red (e.g. fever and inflammation), so the theory went, must have arisen from too much blood in the body.
Similarly, any person whose behavior was strident and "sanguine" was thought to be suffering from an excess of blood.
Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between man & leech.
Be well O,
sss
ps: we miss you.
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"I do feel naked, often; I feel naked and splayed and laid bare by writing here. It's my own choice: to open myself like a book, to let eager hand and eye unveil me."
I so admire your courage for being able to do that. It took me so long to be able to write something without fear of rejection, so much so that even today i have tremors before hitting "Publish".
Don't let him cut you too deep. I'm not sure he deserves the honour.
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O,
Do you hate him sometimes as well as love and want him ? There is a darkness there, through everything. A pain as well as a pleasure.
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Better that you direct your autopsy, than anyone else.
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Closed/on Hiatus
![Your writing in the other hand [sic] is pure filth and disgusting.](http://www.gotbears.com/gund/sesamestreet/75985.jpg){kind=link}
In medieval and early modern medicine, the medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis and its congeners Hirudo verbana, Hirudo troctina and Hirudo orientalis) was used to remove blood from a patient as part of a process to "balance" the "humors" that, according to Galen, must be kept in balance in order for the human body to function properly. (The four humors of ancient medical philosophy were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.) Any sickness that caused the subject's skin to become red (e.g. fever and inflammation), so the theory went, must have arisen from too much blood in the body.
Similarly, any person whose behavior was strident and "sanguine" was thought to be suffering from an excess of blood.
Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between man & leech.
Be well O,
sss
ps: we miss you.