Page Thirteen
Friday 24 October 2008 Turners trolls
Ever since I learned about Cassandra, in college, I’ve identified very strongly with this mythological figure. She was a member of the cursed House of Atreus, and she had an affair with the god Apollo. While he was delighted with her, he gave her the gift of prophecy. But later, in a rage because she had been unfaithful, he had to retaliate. Greek gods weren’t allowed to take back their gifts, but they were allowed to give other gifts that would nullify the orginals. And Apollo, in his rage, had to leave Cassandra with her prophecy gift, but he followed it up with the curse that no one would ever believe her. And so she spoke truth all of her life, and was never believed.
As a person with Asperger’s, who has never made the amount of eye contact that neurotypicals seem to require, I’ve been labelled by many, many people over my lifetime as either a liar or a paranoid or a fantasist. After all, people who won’t make enough contact are obviously lying, and may even be nuts. And I, the Aspergian, have lied in my lifetime less than anyone else I’ve known, and I haven’t made up untrue stories about people or events, and I haven’t imagined things out of thin air. I’ve been calling myself Cassandra in my thoughts for decades.
Being the homeless bum that I am, living now in a park, I spend a lot of time here in the Turners library to be indoors. Fishing through an old book of early female amerikan poets yesterday, I found one I’d never heard of before, and whose every poem in the anthology I liked. Here is a particular favorite.
Cassandra…….. louise bogan
To me, one silly task is like another. I bear the shambling tricks of lust and pride. This flesh will never give a child its mother, – Song, like a wind, tears through my breast, my side, And madness chooses out my voice again, Again. I AM THE CHOSEN NO HAND SAVES: The shrieking heaven lifted over men, Not the dumb earth, wherein they set their graves.
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