Eternal Obsession

Books. Don't we all love them? Personally, I can never get enough of books. I love being able to simply turn and page and be engulfed in a wild tale or a romantic love story or a tragically depressing yet still beautifully written book. Let's focus on that last one, shall we?

A while back, whilst going through a slightly emo stage [my girls know what I'm talking about ;) ] I would grab every single book that had a dark title or book cover. Sad to say, but I did indeed judge books by their covers. [Oh, the shame!] Anyway, that habit has stuck with me to pick books that do not have the beach blond Hollister model posing with a cardboard heart but rather pick the covers of black with simple white writing spelling out one simple word: Crank.

Now, for the goody two-shoes who are not constantly on patrol for friends on drugs, [I myself stay away from it. My life, My choice, blah blah blah.] crank is quite simple meth. Urban Dictionary states that it received it's nickname "crank" because it was often smuggled in the crank cases of vehicles. Now you know. Urban D. described it's symptoms as grinding of teeth, assholeyness and complete retardation. That about sums it up, in my opinion.

As is obvious, that is quite simply what the book is about. But why am I obsessed with it?

Answer: It's written in poetry form.

I know what your thinking. A 537 book written completely in poems? But let me tell you now, these are not those "Roses are red, violets are blue, my sister's a monkey, and so are you" poems from 2nd grade. These poems are literally beautiful works of art in themselves, leaving aside the fact that they tell a wonderful heartwretching story about how one girl's lives is turned completely upside down from drugs.

Amazing, no?

And because you're all such wonderful viewers, I shall treat you to one. Pay attention to the form of how the poems are written, this is a habit of the writer and it really does contribute to the story. I shall delve deeper into that in a short moment.

Ecstasy is hard to describe

It's like

falling softly into a pool of crystal mountain water

floating on you back cicurlar beneath vibrant sky

deciphering codes in the clouds spinning dizzy fast.

That exportation is from page 427, if your interested and it is not even the entire poem but I wanted to treat you all to another.

Burned out

Burning

up, coming down
I popped three
aspirin against the

throbbing

in my skull, and
attempted a nap.
I laid in bed,

sweating

out toxins, the
last of the E
and crank,

aching

from the inside
out. Could I ever
shift into reverse?

Falling

from euphoria,
I faceplanted into
depression. Hard,

somersaulting

through your own
manure. Harder yet
to get back up without

tripping

and falling all over
again. I felt out of
control, a meteorite

tumbling

through space,
tugged by gravity
toward certain doom.

Now if that didn't amaze you than something seriously is wrong with you. I swear, I head to reread that 5 times because every time I did I was amazed at the depressing feeling the author (Ellen Hopkins) packed into a relatively short sonnet, compared to those of Shakespeare. And did you notice that every line began with a verb? Hmmm? Hmmm? Did you? I believe she breaks down her poems like this to emphasise on certain words. Burning, sweating, aching, falling, somersaulting, tripping, tumbling. Had that been written in normal paragraph form, the reader would not be able to fully absorb on what words the author wanted you to pay attention to and so you don't understand it completely and do not appreciate the author's thoughts and feelings on this subject.

Amazing, isn't it?

Back to Obsession, I'm obsessed with these books [there is more than one!] because of the complexity and deep descriptions on a very touchy subject. But the main reason I'm obsessed with them, is that they are completely true. The author wrote these stories about her daughter, her daughter being the main character. When you read it [I know you will now!] remember that every account, event and feeling is hard fact. Depressing, yes.

And yet I'm obsessed.



{I find a map and draw a straight line, over rivers, farms and state lines. The distance from me to where you'd be, it's only finger lengths that I see.}