You must be so tired!
That day was your day.
You went to Great Places!
You went off and away!
You had brains in your head.
You had feet in your shoes.
And you steered yourself
In directions you’d choose.
You went on your own. And you knew what you knew.
And you were the one who would pick what to do.
You walked up and down streets. Looked them over with care.
Some you saw and thought, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you were too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
Maybe you should have,
you sometimes think now.
Maybe you should have, just once,
If just to learn how.
Sometimes you didn’t find any
you wished to go down.
Sometimes you just gave up,
rode straight out of town.
It’s opener there,
in the wide open air,
you said to yourself.
It wasn’t exactly a lie.
You’d just rather not stay,
You’d just rather not try.
Out there things could happen
and frequently do
to lucky people — other people –
but never to you.
And then things started to happen,
To others — not you –
You followed along.
“I’ll start happening too.”
Oh,
the places you went.
“Now I’m on my way up!
Now I’m seeing great sights!”
You whispered alone
looking up at the heights.
But then you fell behind
(they ran with such speed)
No one waited for you
They all took the lead.
Wherever they flew, you couldn’t quite see
They rushed out of sight
So you stopped by a tree.
“They’ll be back,” you said, quite sure, as sure as can be.
“This isn’t the last that they’ve seen of me.”
But they didn’t come back — not for you, not at all
They didn’t see you or answer your call.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
They happened to you.
You limbs got hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang just flew on.
You were left for the Lurch.
And the Lurch came right for you
He crawled and he crept.
And you ran and you ran
And you hid, and you wept.
The horrors fell on you!
They fell on your skin!
They pried open your eyelids
and let themselves in!
You fled to a place where the streets were not marked.
Some windows were lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could lose both your voice and your skin!
You daren’t stay out — you daren’t stay in –
Ah, the things that you lost there, still trying to win.
Those things are still scuttling from corner to street
You’d not recognize you, if you happened to meet.
It would dance broken-jointedly up from behind.
You’d flinch in fear — I’m afraid you would find
The version of you that had fractured its mind.
You’d get so confused
that you’d start in to race
down long sneering roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles ‘cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place.
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their nightmares to go.
Everyone was just waiting.
NO!
That’s not for you!
You said that, and thought that, and knew it was true
But you stayed, and you stayed, just the waiters and you.
You waited ’til waiting was all you could do.
Somehow you never escaped
all that waiting and staying.
You heard of bright places
where Boom Bands were playing.
But you never went. Why, you can’t say.
“I’ll go there tomorrow. I’ll go there someday.”
But you waited, and waited, and someday didn’t come
Now the waiting is over; the waiting is done.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more I’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because I’m that kind of a guy!
Then you wake up, and know that that dream was a lie.
Oh, the places you went! There was fun to be done!
There were points to be scored. There were games to be won.
And you did some of them — a few, it’s true
Not as many as others, but the best you could do.
The best? voices ask, and you shake them aside
The best, you insist, as a matter of pride.
You won all the games that you played against you.
Games you cheated, or snuck out of, or forfeited, too.
You won every game that you ever withdrew.
If you never quite finish, you never quite lose.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone is now something
you’ll be quite a lot.
Everyone else has places to go.
They can’t stop and listen
to things that went wrong,
They’ll stop for a minute, and nod, and cluck, and say “Hm,” and “So sorry,”
But they won’t stay for long.
No one ever stays long.
You had your chance to go Places.
It’s not their fault you didn’t.
Once you became alone, you flinched at all sights
You were scared of the hollows and scared of the heights
Scared of the road and scared to go on
Scared to bed down and scared of the dawn.
Scared of the others who pass you along.
Scared of yourself, and scared of the strong.
Scared of most everything you see pressing on.
You went on so long
in rains thick and foul.
You went on for days
Where your enemies prowled.
You went on through swamps
full of shrieks and of howls.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
And your arms, they grew sore
and your mind sprung a leak.
On and on you hiked,
And it’s true you hiked far
Til you laid down to rest
Til you came to a bar.
Giving up felt so light
You barely noticed it start
It felt easy and right
To quiet your spirits and quiet your heart.
You got mixed up, of course
as you already know.
You got mixed up
with so many strange birds — where’d they go?
They left you in silence, like all of the rest
They left you in darkness with hate in their breast.
It’s too late to change course,
Too late to start now.
You wouldn’t know where –
You wouldn’t know how.
You went Places,
That must be enough.
That must be enough, and now you must rest.
You tried, just a little bit less than your best.
That part’s not your fault, you keep telling the air.
Maybe the next will do better out there.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
You didn’t move mountains.
So…
You must be that 1 and 1/4 percent.
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
You missed the Great Places.
Today’s not your day!
Your mountain has moved on.
It’s shut tight the way.
Tags: children’s stories made horrific, dr seuss, oh the places you’ll go, the surreal
oh no…
When I graduated elementary school, our principal read Oh the Places You’ll Go to us. But not the “bad” parts. Just the upbeat ones that are impossibly optimistic if not counterbalanced.
I suspect she’d faint clean away if she read this version.
I think this may be the best thing you’ve ever written, Mallory.
It’s the best/worst. Ooof…
I was chopping onions while reading this. Really.
which doesn’t explain the pain in my heart but it’s a good excuse for the tears.
Jesus Christ, Mallory.
That was my response verbatim…
Someone please do the Tennant fist-shaking gif to read ORTBERG at the bottom so it can be posted on every one of these life ruining pieces of brilliance.
If you never quite finish, you never quite lose.
…ouch, yo.
Seriously, this has been basically my inadvertent life motto for probably longer than I want to acknowledge right now, like maybe I need to get it tattooed on me or painted on all my walls or seared onto the insides of my eyelids as a reminder of how much I really don’t want it to be.
This seems entirely more accurate than the version used to sell the Henging two years ago.
I can already imagine my first AA meeting, where I admit that I started getting day-drunk every day in order to fortify myself before reading anything written by Mallory.
Oh god, Mallory…
On the other hand, it was a good kick in the pants to get back to revising the novel I’m working on, so…thanks? *shudders in horrified gratitude*
This needs an existential despair / self-loathing warning. And it’s a damn fine piece of writing. So.
Oh, Mallory
Well, better tape this one to my TV screen so I remember to stop Netflixing my life away.
fucking YIKES.
I read this, I did! And the things I am feeling
Are really quite cutting and need lots of healing
Skittery flinching and forfeited games
The words poke and they taunt and they call me cruel names
All I can do is cling on to scant hope
The meagerest thread at the end of the rope
“If someone like Mallory can call up these phrases
And wield them in ways that will haunt me for dayses,
Then maybe, just maybe, my darkness and sadness
Aren’t solo pursuits, and I might avoid madness.”
After all, aren’t there millions? So a quarter plus one
Times millions and millions means that this psychic ton
Of grim realization that life’s passing by
Is shared between me and those gals, and that guy
Between us we’ll heft just a bit of the weight
So life’s a bit better… if not,
just yet,
great
*severe yet respectful golf clappings of vast admiration*
*blush*
A Toast to the one and one-quarter percenters:
We can’t all be doctors or public defenders
Or work at a job where it’s easy to say,
“I’m helping the world in a measurable way.”
They’ve Gone to the Places they knew they would Go.
Still, does one point two five sound improbably low?
If I’m wrong, then our problems should fast be improving
But most of our mountains don’t seem to be moving
The waters are rising, the hard rains still falling
While we’re on the sidelines retweeting and lol’ing
So here’s where I stumble from Tumblr to tumbler
A dozen years older and many times humbler
To raise up a glass and conclude this short verse:
At least we’re not actively making things worse.
/drink
“At least we’re not actively making things worse. ”
Yes! This is my motto. As long as I’m semi-interested in what I’m doing and am plausibly not making things worse, I’m good.
*blows kisses*
I was holding back the tears until I read this.
welp guess I’ll just go crouch in the corner and clutch my head for awhile
And here I thought the Toast liked introverts!
Well shit. This is like a bright neon poster for my anxiety and depression. And while I love it…good god I can’t decide whether to sob uncontrollably, run away, or just hide under a blanket.
But…don’t stop writing, Mallory. Like, ever. Pretty please.
Um, well… fuck. Ow.
I think the “shudder of recognition” tag I saw on the Hey Ladies post needs to be here. That, and maybe a “midlife crisis” tag.
Eep. Are you ok, Mallory?
BRB, sobbing…..
This was not what I needed/exactly what I needed/always what I will need.
Today has been brought to you by the adverb “broken-jointedly,” and by the number “zero.”
From one Mallory to another… I do not believe that someone so talented has missed their only chance for happiness/self actualization. This is not coming from an optimist or someone just trying to “make you feel better”. It’s just how I feel.
I can only assume you wrote this from the very dark place which you so painfully, exquisitely described in this piece. So many of the commentors already said what I was feeling… the strange and most unexpected revelation that perhaps others really do feel as I do. I did not expect this piece to ever come from such a talented person who is successfully sharing their talent on a blog she co-founded. I supposed this is because I see myself as such a complete and utter failure of a person, and can’t wrap my brain around us being in the same emotional place.
The darkness just seems to keep getting darker and memories of happier times keep feeling more distant. I keep waiting for new joys to fill the void left behind by past ones that never returned, but they remain hollow chambers that echo back my every regret.
I won’t assume anything about your life or speculate why you are in this place. But, my great wish for you (and for myself, I guess) is that what you feel now is only part of the road which will take you to the moment where your heart and your mind connect and you feel in that moment that you are in the right place at the right time.
Oh, dear. While I appreciate your concern, I’m afraid you may have mistaken a work of fiction for a diary entry. I’m quite well, thanks very much, and it’s not at all unusual for me to write creepy and haunted fictive pieces while in a quite cheerful mood. Thank goodness, too, otherwise we’d have to pack everyone who ever wrote a horror novel or a creepy poem off to intensive therapy.
Writing things that make us despair is, I think, part of what makes Mallory the chipper bit of sunshine that she is. She actually enjoys it, I believe. We’ll start worrying when she writes nothing but rainbows.
I am smitten by the prowess of your poetry and prose.