EX-FUTURIST

My Therapy Ate My Future

And good riddance

by author

This isn’t a story about bad therapy, but if that’s what you came for, I’ll give you a little bad therapy:

I once had a therapist who fought against sleep while I talked.

His eyes drooped. His head drooped. Then his head would catch itself on the way down, snapping back up. Then sink again.

And again.

He never fell all the way asleep, and that’s how you win a battle as a therapist, but lose the war.

For him, my voice was tranquilizing. Whatever I said was a sedative. I could be telling him about mind hell, he heard a lullaby.

That’s how dogs work. Say, “I love you, Daisy the Dog,” but say it hatefully, and Daisy will wander away, crushed. However, if you weave your words into a song, an airborne love letter full of baby-talk brightness, and deliver the following message, Daisy will shiver with fulfillment, self-respect, and joy:

“I want to jam you in a sausage grinder,
make you watch the muzzle loose its turd, a wet reminder
of what you are —
meaningless meat in a ratty sack of fur —
and the cat will eat your meat before your eyes.
What’s left of you, I’ll cauterize,
so you can live the final digits of your life
watching you shoot in shits from…