Half-hanged Mary
by Margaret Atwood
I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts;
Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there's talk of demons these come in handy.
"I hurt, therefore I am"
Mary Webster, sentenced to death for being "strange/weird/wicked" - just another word for being "DIFFERENT". If I had lived in that society, I am pretty positive I must have been hanged not twice but skinned alive like the little fox and animals in China by now.
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"I hurt, therefore I am"
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"wickedly" sarcastic, "wickedly" sharp, "wickedly" sensitive
Mine mine, what have I become?
The mirror of life, reflecting its hideousness and beauty?
The echo of the world, shouting back in double, triple amount of what it whispered to me - most of the time, not kindness but cruelty and hurtful remark
I was hurt, therefore I close my heart, therefore, I guard my sense, therefore I defend before being attacked.
I was wounded from top to toes, from flesh to bones, therefore, I know where it hurts the most, where the pain is most unbearable, therefore I in turn, master the skill of inflicting pains on others...
I have moved from the very definition of kindness and forgiving, to the twisted soul of a fighter, a defender, being indifferent to people's pain - it does not hurt that much, why are you complaining? The more excruciating the pain is, the better, faster, more unforgettable the lesson you learn... In one way or another, we all should learn, don't we? SO why take the easy way out. Get burned once to NEVER play with fire twice.
Little do I realize, different people value different things, and possess different level of tolerance toward pains... Even endurance to hardship. Since the very beginning of my journey to Singapore, I was unable to make sense of my room mates' tears - being their 1st time away from their parents. More precisely, I was unable to make sense of my own emotion - why I was unable to shed that lake of tears too? Why I was so different - my pride or my curse of being "abnormal"
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I am not proud of what I have learned, through fictions and facts, to reality and literature... Margaret Atwood certainly has become my favorite author. Miss Lin told me to read more of Robert Frost, for I lack the love for nature, for I lack the appreciation for the world around me... In stead I get myself in to Atwood.
I do not expect to be understood. I do not demand sympathy.
I ask for nothing from you.
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In the middle of my personal statement, I wonder what I should write, about myself
About my desire, my worth
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Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.
I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.
Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail.
Before, I was not a witch.
But now I am one.
...
Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.
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what am I now?
