Ode to Margaret Cho

I’ve always liked comedian Margaret Cho. I saw her perform in Fairfield, CT, a few years ago. After reading the interview by Danielle Bacher, Margaret Cho Gets Deep About Past Sexual Abuse: 'All I Have Is Ownership of My Own Suffering,’ for Billboard, I like her even more.

Jessica Chou from Billboard

There is such an honesty in her art and performance. She is someone who it seems is truly being real and being herself. She has found a way to express herself through different media—comedy, song and prose—as she needs them.

I see her as a role model: she says what she thinks and feels and experiences without a filter and then finds ways to express and heal through her art.

This piece is inspired by hearing Cho talk about her childhood abuse. She helps me feel like I don’t have to censor myself so much. She makes me feel empowered to express what’s real.

Rope

The rope he used to tie

my thin white arms

behind my back.

He leads me into small cold bedroom,

pushes me down onto dirty sheets—

ones his mother gave him with little yellow flowers.

It’s dark except for slants of light

crossing in from living room.

I’m on my stomach,

choking on flying feather balls.

Tears are soaking the pillow.

He ties my ankles together;   

it hurts, it cuts into my skin.

He opens the left side door of his closet

takes out his brown leather belt

it was hanging there

he’s making sniffling sounds

I can smell his Marlboro

I am crying and I am saying

do it do it do it whatever it takes

whip me whip me

the words pathetic, clichéd,

but that is what I said

he is he is he is he is he is he is whipping me  

honestly and it makes this slapping sound

this cutting feeling on my back

on my buttocks

I didn’t know he’d do it

so hard and he keeps it on going

now I’m saying      

please stop I love you oh god oh please oh stop  you’re high you don’t know when to stop

then just like that I hear the belt’s buckle

clink on the tile floor and he walks

out of the room and I smell his cigarette

smoke again.  I peer back over my shoulder

but it’s too dark to see the welts

then there he is his face

pink red and his blonde hair spiky

he stares at me with cold marble eyes

takes his belt off, pants off

I’m crying and he comes

over to me and fucks

me from behind

while I’m crying lying there

This is what rape feels like.  

Robin Williams, My Depression and Stand-Up

Robin Williams' suicide has me very upset. I've always admired him tremendously. His energy, enthusiasm and wonder that exuded from his personality was a balm to my own depression.

I decided to try something new a few months ago. I decided to take a stand-up comedy class. It’s been a real challenge for me because of my depression, but I’ve been studying Williams’ old routines and marveling at his gift.

Someone so successful and who brought so much joy to people chooses suicide. I just feel so overwhelmingly sad.

I am not surprised, but angry, not at him, but at depression.

How can there be such a horrible illness that makes us want to end our lives? That makes us feel so overwhelmed that we just can’t live anymore?

I find myself in a haze. I find myself obsessing over his death.

When we connect to a celebrity in a strong way through their performances and interviews, we really do begin to feel like we know them. I feel like my crazy, goofy uncle died.

But I didn’t know him. But I keep wanting to be able to go back in time and be his friend and be there when the darkness got too deep. And I know that is just silly because he had friends and family and they loved him and he loved them, but still, tragedy happens.

That might be the hardest part—knowing that sometimes suicide happens and it’s horrible, but you can’t go back. You can’t change it.

Maybe that’s the real issue that’s rising for me now. I can’t go back in time. I can’t change anything. I can’t change my own past.

I can’t go back and make my mother well. I can’t go back and make better choices when I was younger. And I can’t seem to make my depression go away for good.

We just can’t.

I am clinging to my wonderful outer world—loving husband, three great kids, work I like, creative challenges—but my inner world goes back and forth between wanting to allow me to be great and wanting to destroy me.

I keep trying. I will keep trying.

I did my first open mike a few weeks ago; it was terrifying. The laughs I got felt good. Being onstage again felt good.

I understand why I’ve always needed to perform in some way, to have people look at me—because that’s when I can be someone else, that’s when I can break free of depression’s strangle on me. It’s all about looking out instead of in.

Tonight is our final class. And maybe I’ll try the open mike again. I need the escape. The release from the inner demons.

I want to be free to laugh. I want to bring joy to the world.

Robin Williams, thank you. You brought joy to me. I’m sorry the pain was too much. You will be missed.