Transcript

I’m Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

Some of what I am not proud of, early twenties edition: I said yes to the question if I have ever read Tolstoy. I raved about an album that a rival brought up in a conversation, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, which never played in my Walkman. I pretended to have seen Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise, of which I’d only viewed the trailer. And I acted as if I knew a famous person from Philly, who rapped at my high school dance parties, several times — actually only once.

Some of what I am not proud of, early thirties edition: pretending to know what some very smart friends were talking about instead of interrupting to ask questions; not admitting to a dear friend my frustration with his treatment of people; always saying “I’m good,” even though I was spiraling in a way that alarmed those who loved me. These fall under the “fake it till you make it” category of lying. But in this case, the faking it part doesn’t help.

One of the great feelings of aging is coming clean about my shortcomings. That honesty is an illuminating relief, because, as today’s surrealist poem suggests, the masks we take on eventually make us an imposter to ourselves.

Lying My Head Off
by Cate Marvin

Here’s my head, in a dank corner of the yard.
I lied it off and so off it rolled.
It wasn’t unbelieving that caused it
to drop off my neck and loll down a slope.
Perhaps it had a mind of its own, wanted 
to leave me for a little while.

Or it was scared and detached itself
from the stalk of my neck as a lizard’s tail
will desert its body in fright of being caught.
The fact is, I never lied. The fact is, 
I always lied. Before us, we have two mirrors.
At times, they say, one must lie in order

to survive. I drove by the house, passed
it several times, pretending it was not
my own. Its windows were red with curtains
and the honeyed light cast on the porch
did not succeed in luring me back inside. 
I never lied. I drove by the house,

suckling the thought of other lovers
like a lozenge. I was pale as a papery birch.
I was pure as a brand new pair of underwear.
It will be a long while before I touch another.
Yet, I always lied, an oil slick on my tongue.
I used to think that I was wrong, could

not tell the truth for what it was. Yet, one
cannot take a lawsuit out on oneself.
I would have sworn in court that I believed 
myself and then felt guilty a long time after.
I hated the house and I hated myself.
The house fattened with books, made me

grow to hate books, when all the while
it was only books that never claimed 
to tell the truth. I hated him and I hated
his room, within which his cloud of smoke 
heaved. I disappeared up narrow stairs,
slipped quick beneath the covers.

My stomach hurts, I told him, I was tired.
I grew my dreams thick through hot nights:
dear, flickering flowers. They had eyes
which stared, and I found I could not afford
their nurture, could not return their stare,
Meanwhile, liars began their parade

without my asking, strode sidewalks inches
before my doorstep. I watched their hulking
and strange beauty, their songs pregnant 
with freedom, and became an other self.
I taught children how to curse.
I bought children gold pints of liquor.

I sold my mind on the street.
1 learned another language. It translates easily.
Here’s how: What I say is not what I mean,
nor is it ever what I meant to say.
You must not believe me when I say
there’s nothing left to love in this world.

“Lying My Head Off” by Cate Marvin from FRAGMENT OF THE HEAD OF A QUEEN © 2007 Cate Marvin. Used by permission of Sarabande Books.