Meditation 81

2 July 2020

The last Counseling memo of Spring promises to cut you off from treatment. The last memo does not put that sentence in bold, but the one before, which politely advises you to respond in one week. The last memo is too complicated to be read by a student in distress. Written words dissolve into reeds, sharp as writing implements. Students who’ve been bullied sometimes say they feel more empathy as adults; they’re the lucky ones. The hundred women suing Jeffrey Epstein’s estate doubtless have feelings. Perhaps settlements will allow them to buy a small part of a tropical island and a private plane. Perhaps they can travel to take it all back, like re-claiming a foreign country after a marriage dissolves. Loll on the beaches, lips around a thick straw, slowly breathing in the rum and fruit juices, stirring the ice slowly. Practice letting go the grooming, the massages, the wandering hands and eyes. Surely, any image can be broken. Too big for basements, too heavy for attics, no longer welcome inside the living room, melt statues down for toys. Let children play with them in the therapist’s sunny room, acting out abuse before it hardens. Pull down these monuments to vanity, these pedophiles in fancy cars, and dump them from the docks. You’ll get 10 years in prison if the president gets his way. The memory police are out on call.

--Volcano