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The story is that when I was born I had an under-developed nervous system. My mother reminds me of this when she sees that I am rolling to a boil, threatening to leap out of my pot and burn anything in my way. This reminder shouldn’t make things any better, but it usually does. There is something comforting about having an explanation for the storm brewing inside of me. Other people? They are clearly broken, too.
However, the other day I watched a friend submit to outburst, and, because it wasn’t anything unexpected, I couldn’t find empathy inside of me. In fact, I spent the rest of the day affected by what I’d witnessed, uncomfortable, angry even.
It was as though I had leaned down on my hands and knees and had drunk from the same trough of tantrum. I couldn’t shake my own queasy feeling of despair (and even embarrassment) long into the next morning when I was reading American Poetry Review and came across this divinely hilarious piece that just snapped everything into perspective:
A business model
By Bob Hicok
Even martyrs
need help, for who
can nail their right hand
with their right hand to the cross?