Lit, a Slam Poem ( YOUR GONNA ANALYZE THIS)

Lit (or: to the scientist I am not speaking to any more) | Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Don’t say you didn’t see this coming, Jason.

Don’t say you didn’t realize this would be my reaction
and that you never intended for me to get all worked up,
because if that were true, then you are dumber
than  caLenny from Mice and Men, blinder than Oedipus
and Tierus put together andn feel less
than a Dalton Trumbo character.

You put the Dick in Dickens and the Boo in kowski
and are more Coward-ly then Noël.

But you don’t understand any of these references,
Do you, Jason? Because you ‘don’t read’.
You are a geology major and you once told me
That, ‘Scientists don’t read popular literature,
Cristin, we have more important things to do’.

Well, fuck you.

Be glad you don’t read, Jason,
because maybe you won’t understand this
as I scream it to you on your front lawn,
on Christmas Day, brandishing three hypodermic needles,
a ginsu knife and a letter of permission
from Bret Easton Ellis.

Jason, you are more absurd than Ionesco.
You are more abstract than Joyce,
more inconsistent than Agatha Christie
and more Satanic than Rushdie’s verses.

I can’t believe I used to want to Sappho you, Jason.
I used to want to Pablo Neruda you,
to Anais Nin And Henry Miller you. I used to want
to be O for you, to blow for you in ways
that even Odysseus’ sails couldn’t handle.
But self-imposed illiteracy isn’t a turn-on.

You used to make fun of me being a writer,
saying ‘Scientists cure diseases,
what do writers do?’

But of course, you wouldn’t understand, Jason.
I mean, have you ever gotten an inner thirsting
for Zora Neale Hurston?
Or heard angels herald for you
to read F Scott Fitzgerald?
Have you ever had a beat attack for Jack Kerouac?
The only Morrison you know is Jim, and you think
you’re the noble one?

Go Plath yourself.

Your heart is so dark, that even Joseph Conrad
couldn’t see it, and it is so buried under bullshit
that even Poe’s cops couldn’t hear it.

Your mind is as empty as the libraries in Fahrenheit 451.
Your mind is as empty as Silas Marner’s coffers.
Your mind is as empty as Huckleberry Finn’s wallet.

And some people might say that this poem
is just a pretentious exercise
in seeing how many literary references
I can come up with.

And some people might complain that this poem is,
at its core, shallow, expressing the same emotion again,
and again, and again. (I mean, there are only so many times
you can articulate your contempt for Jason,
before people get bored.)

But you know what, Jason? Those people would be wrong.

Because this is not the poem I am writing to express
my hatred for you.

This poem is the poem I am writing because we aren’t speaking,
and it is making my heart hurt so bad, it is all I
can do just to get up off the floor sometimes.

And this is the poem I am writing instead of writing
the ‘I miss having breakfast with you’ poem, instead of
writing the ‘Let’s walk dogs in our old schoolyard
again’ poem.

Instead of the ‘How are you doing?’ poem, the ‘I miss you’ poem,
the ‘I wish I was making fun of how much you like Garth
Brooks while sitting in front of your parents’ house
in your jeep’ poem, instead of the ‘Holidays are coming around
and you know what that means: SUICIDE!’ poem.

I am writing this so that I can stop wanting to write
the ‘I could fall in love with you again so quickly
if only you would say one more word to me’ poem.

But I am tired of loving you, Jason
cause you don’t love me right.

And if some pretentious-ass poem can stop me
From thinking about the way your laugh sounds,
about the way your skin feels in the rain,
about how I would rather be miserable with you,
then happy with anyone else in the world.

If some pretentious-ass poem can do all that?
Then I am gone with the wind, I am on the road,
I have flown over the fucking cuckoo’s nest,
I am gone, I am gone, I am gone.

I am.


Aptowicz’s writing is as humorous as it is depressing. The mood is at first angry, this anger translating to hilarity by the use of Aptowicz’s many allusions and repetition of her ex-lovers name, Jason. Her use of anaphora with the term “your mind is as empty as” is humorous and obviously gets her point across. The clever use of many different literary references and derogatory remarks against Jason are what keep the mood angry yet amusing. This changes, however, after Aptowicz’s states that this is “not the poem I am writing to express my hatred for you.” She goes on to state her underlying feelings about Jason, and how she is still in love with him. Her repetition of “I am gone” leading into the final “I am”, is her realization that she is nothing without Jason, and knows that no man will be able to fulfill what she felt with him. However, this last line can be interpreted very differently. It could be a defiant, and nearly sarcastic, last attempt at “getting over” Jason.

While analyzing the passage, interpret the last line. What do you believe it means?