September 9th, 2024 - Greensleeves

Dear TNY,

I’m still in Phoenix, I don’t remember going to bed or the swimming that preceded it, and I have read “Greensleeves”.

It’s not terrible.  The tension is great.  The descriptions are pretty clutch too.  Here’s my favorite, and I don’t care if you don’t like it or not:

He had admired her eyes before, but not until now her long eyelashes, which his heart kept catching on.

The framework is my only area of concern with this story.  The way it flows in and out of the present and past isn’t as seamless as it could be and the story got muddled in the middle because of that.  Additionally, we spend the majority of the time inside the therapist’s head, but not all the time.  But, like, 80%.  So it doesn’t feel balanced.  Then when we move out of his head it feels like the author fucked up making a POV shift.  That the rules weren’t kept, ya dig?

That’s all I have to say.  I’m so tired.  The days are getting bad again.  I just love and miss her so much.  Feels like everyone in the world, including her, is saying we should not be together.  But here I am, in a giant room all by myself in a circle big enough for two, with a bundle of flowers, like a little boy patiently waiting for his next door neighbor to come out of her house so he can ask her if he can carry her books to school.  If that’s not fucking sad, I don’t know what is.

Oh, this is the first paragraph of the story.  And it’s fucking dead on.

“What I want to know,” the woman said to the therapist, “is why the voices always say mean, terrible things. Why don’t they ever say things like ‘You’re a good person. You’re a great, smart, wonderful guy, your life matters, and you deserve to be happy’? I mean, instead of saying, ‘You’re no good, your life is worthless, everyone hates you, you should hurt yourself, you deserve to be hurt, you deserve to die.’

And there we are, friends.  Come close. Close now into this circle with me.  Shhh.  Quiet down.  Listen.

I’m no good.

My life is worthless.

Everyone hates me.

I should hurt myself.

I deserve to be hurt.

I deserve to die.

See you guys next week.

Nick