You know you’re narcissistic when you keep trying to slyly show your therapist your poetry / She says how are you feeling / And I say I don’t know and we both sit there in silence which is horribly unbearable and embarrassing because it means I don’t know my emotions from my body and so I say actually I’ve been working on this poem oh I don’t know and she says what is it about which sounds like interest / And I love being interesting / So I say well it’s um it’s about a lot of things / It’s nuanced and complex / Which are big poetry words so she knows I’m the real deal / And then there’s silence again / Which makes me think she’s already gotten bored of me / And so I say I don’t know I could like haha read it for you if you want / And she says well that’s not really the point / And I say I think my poetry expresses how I feel pretty well / And then she says metaphors aren’t always the best way to express how you feel / Which means I am annoying her but I can’t stop at this point it would be selling myself short and maybe she’s just nervous that I write about her so I say how would you know do you write poetry? / Isn’t art therapy a thing? / Wouldn’t poetry be considered like a form of revealing art? / And now we are being too confrontational and just staring at each other so finally she says would you like to read it? / And I say only if you want to hear it / And I know she’s thinking why the fuck would I want to hear it / But she smiles because I’m the one paying her and she says sure / But neither of us at this point are sure / And I spend five minutes pretending to get the poem up on my google docs app / But really it’s already loaded on my phone / I don’t want her to know about my unattractive eagerness / The way I hope someone will say my name from across the room like a need / or how I love the little hands of someone’s thigh hugging against my jeans in an auditorium bleacher / It’s narcissistic to be talking about myself / And all I do with my therapist is talk about myself / Finally I announce that the poem is ready and we lock eyes / I read the poem as a dried lemon rolling on the ground / By which I mean my only use is as decor rather than sustenance / Sometimes when she asks me how I feel over our zoom sessions I open a new tab on my computer and quickly search up lists of emotions / When I read off the first few she sighs like a refrigerator unsure of what to feed me /
From the author: “A lot of my writing explores moments in my life that feel embarrassing, and I find a lot of my therapy sessions really embarrassing. I saw a tweet about how every time their therapist asks how they are they go “I’m good, how are you?” which made me laugh a lot since I do the same thing. I’m pretty sure thats what pushed me to write out the idea. Yes, my therapist is there to help me #healmytrauma but more importantly I want her to laugh at my jokes. I love working out of old diaries and tumblr posts. Teen angst is funny and sad and complex. Writing so often is just a means to archive different versions of ourselves, and for me my teen angst self still feels like the most interesting and relatable part of me to share with people. Lean into your teenage angst!”
Raina Greifer (she/they) is a queer writer and performance-maker. Inspired by reality tv and the small collection of herbs on her windowsill, her work explores themes of sex, grief and femininity. She has been published by House Letters, Constellations Magazine, and Leeve Magazine. As a spoken word artist she has performed as a co-headliner for Bristol Femme Night and Raise the Bars Spotlight event.
Originally published: Juked
Ok Frank 