Portrait of an Eye by Kathy Acker

Author:Kathy Acker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

don’t hurt me daddy don’t do me wrong

I’ve loved you so long

don’t you see corporate violence is killing me

hurt my body cause me pain

I need love so bad I need more again

I want you so badly I’ll be anyone

I want any lover so badly I’m a piece of scum

don’t you see corporate violence is killing me.

I began to do what I wanted:

I began to hate people I had formerly only looked down upon because they didn’t have Rita’s eyes. I wanted to cut out their eyes. At first I tried to restrain myself by sticking a knife in my legs.

Rita again arrived. It was more beautiful than the last time. It was our anniversary. For hours we stared into each other’s eyes into each other’s eyes. We didn’t move. In the still of the night I kissed exactly on her lips our tongues touched and she left. Her mouth was the new world.

After she left, I took out my knife cut out the painted eyes of my ancestral family who were in the gallery. I didn’t feel guilty at all.

I saw Rita once a year on the anniversary of our marriage until I became ten years old. I became ten years old. I was still trying to do what I wanted. But I didn’t know how things are. I received a letter from the old man in Vienna who directed my education telling me I had to come to Vienna forever the night before I would see Rita again.

I would never see Rita again. I was outraged. I had to flee. Early in the morning, grey and red light slowly streaming over the sleeping winos, I tiptoed out of the house to the stables. I undid the horses’ halters: strapped myself under the stomach of the black mare. I set fire to the hay. Immediately: fear flames and crackling lickety-split the horses fled. Huge uproaring panic. My mare leaped three times joined the streaming maddened horses. I cleverly fooled the cops. But one cop, without warning, shot to kill. He didn’t care about the value of a life. My mare collapsed on top of me. I was covered with blood. When I got to the palace, my skull was cracked my ribs crushed my legs broken. I had done what I wanted. I could stay and see Rita. I hadn’t figured things out.

But Rita didn’t come.

I couldn’t make Rita come I became delirious. I had no friend I couldn’t do what I wanted. I was delirious for three weeks. Then I began slowly to recover. But my right leg, after two more months, hung inert. I didn’t know if the doctors had been unable, or had been ordered to leave my leg disabled. My leg was anchylosed. This infirmity is due to the sinister old Viennese man’s vengeance. He was punishing me for not going to Vienna.

I began to realize the nature of reality:

My world, my social position, my friend, my enemies, my family ties, my relations to the Viennese court.

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