for Miss Ohio

The first thing I want to say is

I want to do right but not right now...

—I want to beg you, dear sir….[1] [2] [3]

People are always saying, I want to know you.

I don’t want that kind of power,

is there anything you want to say? [4] [5] [6]

—What do you want? You want me to make you.

I want you to leave, now.

—I want to beg you, dear sir, to be patient...[7] [8] [9]

I don’t want to lose you, I’m not ready…

—I want you to stop being a coward.

Here is the thing I want to say, loudest of all: [10] [11] [12]

I know you always wanna know the truth

but I don’t—I want to destroy every ~~good~~ thing…

—I want to beg you, dear sir, to be patient[13] [14] [15]

(toward all that is unresolved...)

I want to return this white ~~hour~~ [page] to you.

—Yeah, you want to do right but not right now.

The last thing I want to say is this:

I want to beg you, dear sir, to be patient[16] [17] [18] [19]

(toward all that is unresolved in your heart[s])

— I do not want to be loved.[20]

— I want you to stop being a coward.[21]

— I don’t want to draw this into an either-or argument.[22]

— I want what you want.[23]

— I want to destroy every good thing that has happened to me; I’m a piece a shit, I’m a liar.[24]

— I want you to relax.[25]

— I just want to relax.[26]

— I just want you to listen. I don’t want you to say a word, just listen.[27] [28]

— I want us to work.[29]

— I want to stay. I can make it. [30]

— I just want to stay here with you.[31]

— I want to turn my back on you.[32]

— I don't want to be one of those people who are getting divorced at 52 and falling down into tears, admitting they never really loved their spouse and they feel their life has been sucked up into a vacuum cleaner.[33]

— I want to visit my family.[34]

— I want to get away from our families.[35]

— I want you to understand that you do not have to be loyal to them.[36]

— I want to know where the money went. I really want to know.[37]

— I don’t want to know where the money went.[38]

— I want you to stop loaning your family money![39]

— I will never want for money.[40]

— I want to forget that I’m poor.[41]

— I want you to stop acting poor.[42]

— I want to be emotionally intimate with you and I want to be in love with you, but not in that way.[43]

— There are people I want to sleep with, and I don’t want to sleep with you, so it’s only platonic.[44]

— I want a platonic relationship.[45]

— I want a perfect relationship.[46]

— I want to feel it all every time we kiss.[47]

— I just want to talk about it. Can you be my friend for like two seconds so we can talk?[48]

— Is it okay that I want you to be my best friend?[49]

— I just want you to look at me the way you used to.[50]

— I want to turn my back on you.[51]

— I want to change the subject for a second.[52]

— I don’t want to live behind a strip club.[53]

— I want to become a stripper.[54]

— I want the money, we need the money.[55]

— I want to live close to the city.[56]

— I want to live out in the country.[57]

— I want to make sure we are able to find a nice house and I can sew the drapes and pick matching bed covers.[58]

— I want to feel free![59]

— I want to push back here: I want to suggest that neoliberal reason has returned us back to Plato with a vengeance. [60] [61]

— I want to feel free![62]

— I simply want to suggest that future forms of the politics of emancipation must be inscribed in a resurrection, a re-affirmation, of the Communist idea…[63]

— I want you to be quiet.[64]

— I want some peace and quiet.[65]

— I want to live in a world capital or the howling wilderness.[66]

— I want to obliterate that flowered field, to obliterate my need for the field.[67]

— I just don’t want to feel so bad anymore.[68]

— I want to be beautiful again.[69]

— I don’t want to be the tremulous coot you barely remember.[70]

— I want sausage and pepperoni pizza.[71]

— I want tacos.[72]

— I think I want to lose weight.[73]

— I want a cigarette. I want a hit.[74] [75]

— I want you to want to do the dishes.[76]

— I want to know how come you haven’t done the dishes like I told you?[77]

— I want your help.[78]

— I want you to take better care of yourself.[79]

— I want you to take care of yourself![80]

— Well, I don’t know that I want to be looked after...[81]

— I want you to talk to me![82]

— I know what I want to say clearly enough; the problem is how to embody the ideas.[83]

— I want us to work. [84]

— I want us to work. [85]

— I want us to work. [86]

— I want to love you, baby.[87]

— I want you to try and be the ⬛️⬛️⬛️ I used to know. The old ⬛️⬛️⬛️.

— I want to be your clean boyfriend someday.[88]

— I want to go to church.[89]

— I want your help.[90]

— I want to apply for this loan.[91]

— I don’t want to talk about money with you![92]

— I don’t want to just get laid. I want to build a life with you.[93] [94]

— I don’t want to offend you but you don’t want a life.[95]

— I want you to tell me what being with me makes you feel.[96]

— I want to be independent.[97]

— I want to live on my own.[98]

— I do not want to keep to myself, but none see the brand on my forehead save you and the few who can look me in the face.[99]

— I want you to be quiet.[100]

— I want stability in my life, sure, but on my own terms.[101]

— I want to suggest, however, that no one stands on one’s own; strictly speaking, no one feeds oneself.[102]

— I don’t want you to leave me, I’m not ready.[103]

— I never want to see your face again. I'll never forgive you for this, you crazy bitch.[104]

— I want your mother to stay friends with mine.[105]

— I want you to leave, now.[106]

— I want to get married.[107]

— I want to study god and never get married.[108]

— I want to suggest a concept of love that is less miraculous and more hard work, namely a construction of eternity within time, of the experience of the Two, point by point.[109]

— I just want you to get to the point![110]

(I just want to be held, but contingently,

the way the mind holds a trauma

that failed to take place…

*

(S (NP I)

(VP (ADVP just)

want

(S (VP to

(VP be

(VP held

(ADVP , but contingently ,)

(ADVP the way

(SBAR (S (NP the mind)

(VP holds

(NP (NP a trauma)

(SBAR (WHNP that)

(S (VP failed

(S (VP to

(VP take place))))))))))))))))

.)[cxi]

*

(Ijustwanttobeheld,butcontingently ,thewaymindholdsatraumathatfailed

totakeplace.))[cxii]

[1] Coates, Ta-Nehisi. ‘Better Is Good’: Obama on Reparations, Civil Rights, and the Art of the Possible” (The Atlantic, 2016). https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/ta-nehisi-coates-obama-transcript-ii/511133/

[2] Welch, Gillian. “Look at Miss Ohio” Soul Journey(Acony Records, 2003).

[3] Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton (W.W. Norton, 1962).

[4] Linklater, Richard and Kim Krizan. Before Sunrise script. https://sunrisesunset.fandom.com/wiki/Before_Sunrise_script

[5] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2019, 2020, 2021).

[6] Humans of New York (Facebook Post, April 2012). https://m.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/290109111063196/

[7] Torres, Justin. We, the Animals(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

[8] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2018).

[9] Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton (W.W. Norton, 1962).

[10] Torres, Justin. We, the Animals(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

[11] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2018).

[12]Yuknavitch, Lydia. “It’s a myth that suffering makes you stronger” (Ted.com, 2017). https://ideas.ted.com/its-a-myth-that-suffering-makes-you-stronger/

[13] Malick, Terrence. Song to Song script (2017). https://www.scripts.com/script/song_to_song_18516

[14] Levinson, Sam. Malcolm & Marie script. https://www.scriptslug.com/script/malcolm-and-marie-2021

[15] Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton (W.W. Norton, 1962).

[16] Burgos, Julia. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos (Curbstone Books, 1997).

[17] Welch, Gillian. “Look at Miss Ohio” Soul Journey(Acony Records, 2003).

[18] Rowling, J.K. “J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues” (10 June 2020). https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

[19] Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton (W.W. Norton, 1962).

[20] Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox (Grove Press, 2008).

[21] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2018).

[22] Coates, Ta-Nehisi. ‘Better Is Good’: Obama on Reparations, Civil Rights, and the Art of the Possible” (The Atlantic, 2016). https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/ta-nehisi-coates-obama-transcript-ii/511133/

[23] Phillips, Carl. The Rest of Love (Macmillan Books, 2003).

[24] Levinson, Sam. Malcolm & Marie script. https://www.scriptslug.com/script/malcolm-and-marie-2021

[25] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[26] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[27] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2017).

[28] Lerner, Ben. 10:04 (Farrah, Straus & Giroux, 2014).

[29] Anonymous. Conversations (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

[30] Conroy, Frank. Stop-Time(Penguin Books, 1977).

[31] Kogonada. Columbus script. https://www.scripts.com/script/columbus_5779

[32] Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Aunt Lute Books, 1987).

[33] Linklater, Richard and Kim Krizan. Before Sunset script. https://www.scripts.com/script/before_sunset_3823

[34] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2019).

[35] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[36] Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead (Farrah, Straus & Giroux, 2004).

[37] Martinez, Jennifer. “Phoenix families say they all rented the same condo in Facebook scam” (2021) Fox 10 Phoenix. https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/phoenix-families-say-they-all-rented-the-same-condo-in-facebook-scam

[38] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2016).

[39] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[40] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2019).

[41] Conversations with myself (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. 2019, 2020).

[42] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[43] Chen, Angela. Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Beacon Press, 2020)

[44] Chen, Angela. Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Beacon Press, 2020)

[45] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2016, 2019).

[46] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2017, 2019).

[47] Jacklin, Julia. “Don’t Know How to Keep Lovin’ You.” Crushing(Polyvinyl Record Co., 2019).

[48] Richard Linklater, Julie Delphy, & Ethan Hawke. Before Midnight script. https://www.scripts.com/script/before_midnight_51

[49] Limon, Ada. The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018).

[50] Kaufman, Charlie. Synecdoche, New York script. https://www.scripts.com/script/synecdoche,_new_york_19270

[51] Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Aunt Lute Books, 1987).

[52] Linklater, Richard and Kim Krizan. Before Sunrise script. https://sunrisesunset.fandom.com/wiki/Before_Sunrise_script

[53] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[54] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[55] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[56] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2019).

[57] Conversations with myself (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

[58] Richard Linklater and Kim Krizian. Before Sunset script. https://www.scripts.com/script/before_sunset_3823

[59] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[60] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2021).

[61] Brown, Wendy. Undoing Demos: Neoliberal’s Stealth Revolution (Zone Press, 2015).

[62] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[63] Badiou, Alain and Nicolas Truong. In Praise of Love. Translated by Peter Bush (The New Press, 2012).

[64] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2016, 2018).

[65] Conversations with myself (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

[66] Katherine Anne Porter qtd. in Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Second Series, ed. George Plimpton (Viking Books, 1967).

[67] Brown, Jericho. The Tradition(Copper Canyon Press, 2019).

[68] Todd Phillips and Scott Silver. The Joker script. https://imsdb.com/scripts/Joker.html

[69] Carson, Anne. “The Glass Essay” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48636/the-glass-essay

[70] Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead (Farrah, Straus & Giroux, 2004).

[71] Conversations with myself (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

[72] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2018, 2019).

[73] Laymon, Kiese. Heavy(Scribner, 2018).

[74] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

[75] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2020).

[76] The Break-Up. Dir. by Peyton Reed (Universal Pictures, 2006).

[77] Torres, Justin. We, the Animals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

[78] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

[79] Laymon, Kiese. Heavy(Scribner, 2018).

[80] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[81] Conroy, Frank. Stop-Time(Penguin Books, 1977).

[82] Anonymous. Conversations (2015).

[83] Aldous Huxley qtd. in Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Second Series, ed. George Plimpton (Viking Books, 1967).

[84] Anonymous. Conversations (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

[85] Anonymous. Conversations (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

[86] Anonymous. Conversations (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

[87] Johnson, Denis. Jesus’ Son (Picador, 1992)

[88] Strayed, Cheryl. Wild (Vintage, 2012).

[89] Johnson, Denis. Jesus’ Son (Picador, 1992)

[90] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

[91] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[92] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[93] Linklater, Richard and Kim Krizan. Before Sunrise script. https://sunrisesunset.fandom.com/wiki/Before_Sunrise_script

[94] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[95] Levinson, Sam. Malcolm & Marie script. https://www.scriptslug.com/script/malcolm-and-marie-2021

[96] Laymon, Kiese. Heavy(Scribner, 2018).

[97] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2016)

[98] Anonymous. Conversations with myself ((2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. 2019, 2020).

[99] Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Aunt Lute Books, 1987).

[100] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2016, 2018).

[101] Barot, Rick and Carl Phillips. “Carl Phillips, Art of Poetry No. 103” Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7370/the-art-of-poetry-no-103-carl-phillips

[102] Butler, Judith. The Force of Non-Violence: An Ethico-Politico Bind (Verso Books, 2020).

[103] Torres, Justin. We, the Animals(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

[104] Carver, Raymond. Cathedral (Vintage, 1989).

[105] Jacklin, Julia. “Don’t Know How to Keep Lovin’ You” (Polyvinyl Record Co., 2019).

[106] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015, 2018).

[107] Anonymous. Conversations with others (2015).

[108] Torres, Justin. We, the Animals(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

[109] Badiou, Alain and Nicolas Truong. In Praise of Love. Translated by Peter Bush (The New Press, 2012).

[110] Conversations with myself (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019).

[cxi] “Parse a Sentence.” Inserted into form: I just want to be held, but contingently, the way the mind holds a trauma that failed to take place. https://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/submit-sentence-4.html

[cxii] Lerner, Ben. Angle of Yaw (Copper Canyon Press, 2006).

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