Lara Reyes-Terry | Week 11 | The Freakiest Thing You’ve Ever Seen
(Note: poetically described body horror towards the end)
SHUSH—can I have some goddamn quiet on the set.
Gents, spread ‘em and gimme that hardened highbrow your father slapped into you.
Ladies, brush out your skirts and pretend you like the look,
Get ready to sigh the way your mother used to because
I’ll be like this all night.
Your hearts are bitter, and your blood pumps as slow as a slug so
Put some salt on the wound if it’ll squeeze a smile out of you.
Hold the pain like it’s a secret because it is.
But I’ll force it out of you, doll-with-a-pullstring-style,
The camera craves violence
The gun and the finger behind the trigger will be more well known than you.
A mahogany box got tossed, so what?
The seat’s opened and the subaltern are starving for even a breath on the stage.
The country is waiting.
The curtains open
GASP
(gasp now)
Welcome to The Freakiest Thing You’ve Ever Seen where the only thing worse than its stars
Are the people behind the camera, I’m your host,
[unnamed heteronormative TV hose with the brightest smile and a can-do attitude]
(You know I’m a man, don’t ask silly questions)
On today’s episode we bring to you
The Thing number I don’t know
(There’s no point in naming them,
It’s like trying to remember all your names,
With the high horse comes a lot of dead bugs,
I don’t expect y’all to know that)
Now gasp again, the viewers at home want a show tonight
I present: the body of the female
(Men: it’s perverse and alien at the same, I’ve presented nothing but it’s clear as day, be careful with yourself, your wife’s right next to you)
(Females: it’s your body staring back at you, like a vision of the apocalypse.)
Don’t worry, the camera is your shield
If it can fit in your hand, it’s no big deal.
I may be peeling off the page and leaping into your ears,
With your rapt attention let me horror you into obedience:
Crown concha shell spiraled,
Aspiring for the swirl of the nautilus
A mouth away from swallowing itself
A brick for each vertebrae, you lean forward
The iridescence is trick of light
It’s flesh
It’s staples and barbed wire pushing out from beneath
DON’T TURN AWAY PUT YOUR FACE TO THE FIRE
A baby cactus wrestling womb into submission
The head is gone
(like when you get distracted by a stain on a stranger’s shirt)
There’s pus leaking out from under her breasts
Her skin is curdled and it bubbled retch into your face
You can smell it now?
Are you scared yet?
It’s not human, the decay doesn’t exist.
The muscle is charcoaled and ashing to nothing
Bones like belts, arm strap themselves around folded legs
It’s screaming and it almost sounds like a person
It’s something on a screen but it almost looks real
You’re in the audience but it still takes you a moment to recognize the person
Like a sheet you pull out from the bed to find the comfort of mattress
You pull and pull and pull and pull
THERE’S A WOMAN THERE SOMEWHERE RIGHT??
IF IT DIES IT DIES DEGLOVED OF ITS FALSEHOODS
IF IT DIES IT DIES SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH LOOK AT YOU
…
That’ll be all for tonight’s program gents and ladies
And remember, if it’s on TV
It isn’t real
(Don’t feel bad for it).
Image: https://thenightgallery.wordpress.com/tag/twilight-zone/
Im so sorry I forgor to mention, I felt like being super experimental this week but also pls let me know is maybe this is a little too much ty!
ReplyDeleteHi Lara! Your blog is definitely new but I absolutely love it. Genuinely, I cannot fathom your creativity. I was really excited to read your blog because of the image you included. I watch a concerning amount of YouTube videos about hypnosis and conspiracy theories, which fall into a similar realm of “weird.” At first, I thought you were going to discuss something creepy and otherworldly. Your topic, however, was very much an aspect of reality, although still creepy.
ReplyDeleteI found the host’s personality and voice very intriguing. Initially, it was just comical to me when the host was acting arrogant and deemed it pointless to remember anyone’s names. Then, the voice becomes evil and controlling. The way they talked about “the body of the female” was grotesque and made me wince a bit while reading it. So, I think you accomplished highlighting how the media/society can distort women’s bodies and make them inhuman.
I absolutely love how you ended the blog by saying “if it’s on TV/It isn’t real.” Especially now, there is such an evident detachment from what we see online, we’re not emotionally affected enough by the absurd things that we see happening. It’s really disturbing that exploitation, like what you wrote about, is existent and how so many people can excuse it as almost fictitious.
Lara, woah. Reading the last line of this blog felt like waking up from a fever dream, only to go back and reread it because woah. That was genuinely an experience. This was so cool. Idk why, but after glancing at, and then staring at, the image you chose, I felt like this blog would have been magic/circus vibes.
ReplyDeleteI don't even know how to structure my comment; I'm still processing what I read. I think this was one of the most creative pieces of writing I have ever read.
I loved the intro. The tone/voice of the speaker was crafted beautifully, and I think I imagined some of my favorite TV show hosts trying to try and fit the words (Jeff Probst did not work...).
I specifically liked the parts where it felt like I was legit sat down on a couch, watching the show. When you said the "your wife's right next you" part, I was genuinely amazed because HOW DO YOU EVEN THINK TO WRITE LIKE THAT. LIKE WHAT? It was so powerful. holy.
There were so many emotions felt while reading your blog. I feel I had facial responses like I was watching a movie (which is actually very fitting because it's a TV show), anticipating what was going to come at me next.
The "That'll be all for tonight" was figuratively, and literally, an exhale for me; I could finally relax after what felt like a rollercoaster.
I think my favorite line of your blog was the part about putting salt on wounds to cause a smile. Not only was it evocative, but it also made me think about how some humans genuinely enjoy pain. I feel like growing up, I was definitely one of those people.
Overall, that was such an amazing blog. Thank you so much for sharing
Lara, I wanted to capture my experience going through the Freakiest Thing I’ve Ever Seen, so I’ll be writing this comment as I read through!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic opener. I expected somewhat of a hook-type introductory one-liner to this program, but honestly this whole opening chunk draws me in with each subsequent line. I love the sort of language used here, especially about slugs and salt (since slugs find salt deadly), and the theme of pretending to smile as a pretentious audience in front of a vicious set.
Gasp!! As the host finally announces the program title, being so obviously a male character, I found that I was surprised that I myself also assumed this. Perhaps it was due to the heteronormativity of the first few lines which already gave me the sense of this old fashioned culture (great writing on your part!). The vision of the apocalypse embodied by an image of the female body is such an interesting view that the “females” of the audience see, as if it captures the whole culture of maintaining a perfect womanly image and the standards for a “female” body and reminds the ladies in the audience of the things they must rigorously tend to.
Experiencing the whorl of this body and the visceral quality of your writing here was insane. The bent up, disfigured image I got from the end of the program had me sort of jaw-dropped at the level of your imagery and I appreciate the rawness of the ending! If it dies, it dies someone’s daughter—yet this is only on TV and we shouldn’t feel bad for it. Since it isn’t real after all. I love the meaning behind this. Please keep experimenting, I always find your blogs so interesting to read through!