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I Used To Lie Between Cool, Clean Sheets At Night After I'd Had A Bath, After I Had Washed My Hair And Scrubbed My Knuckles And Finger-nails And Teeth. Then I Could Lie Quite Still In The Dark With My Face To The Window With The Trees In It, And Talk To God.

-Frances Farmer

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I Used To Lie

Frances Farmer

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I Used To Lie Between Cool, Clean Sheets At Night After I'd Had A Bath, After I Had Washed My Hair And Scrubbed My Knuckles And Finger-nails And Teeth. Then I Could Lie Quite Still In The Dark With My Face To The Window With The Trees In It, And Talk To God.

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Never Console Yourself Into Believing That The Terror Has Passed, For It Looms As Large And Evil Today As It Did In The Despicable Era Of Bedlam. But I Must Relate The Horrors As I Recall Them, In The Hope That Some Force For Mankind Might Be Moved To Relieve Forever The Unfortunate Creatures Who Are Still Imprisoned In The Back Wards Of Decaying Institutions.

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I Couldn't Get That Same Feeling During The Day, With My Hands In Dirty Dish Water And The Hard Sun Showing Up The Dirtiness On The Roof Tops. And After A Time, Even At Night, The Feeling Of God Didn't Last.

I Wondered A Little Why God Was Such A Useless Thing. It Seemed A Waste Of Time To Have Him. After That He Became Less And Less, Until He Was... Nothingness.

The More People Pointed At Me In Scorn The More Stubborn I Got And When They Began Calling Me The Bad Girl Of West Seattle High, I Tried To Live Up To It.

To Have A Good Friend Is The Purest Of All God's Gifts, For It Is A Love That Has No Exchange Of Payment. It Is Not Inherited, As With A Family. It Is Not Compelling, As With A Child. And It Has No Means Of Physical Pleasure, As With A Mate. It Is, Therefore, An Indescribable Bond That Brings With It A Far Deeper Devotion Than All The Others.

I Minded My Own Business, And, Unfortunately, So Did Everyone Else.

That Satisfied Me Until I Began To Figure That If God Loved All His Children Equally, Why Did He Bother About My Red Hat And Let Other People Lose Their Fathers And Mothers For Always?

I Used To Lie Between Cool, Clean Sheets At Night After I'd Had A Bath, After I Had Washed My Hair And Scrubbed My Knuckles And Finger-nails And Teeth. Then I Could Lie Quite Still In The Dark With My Face To The Window With The Trees In It, And Talk To God.

For Eight Years I Was An Inmate In A State Asylum For The Insane. During Those Years I Passed Through Such Unbearable Terror That I Deteriorated Into A Wild, Frightened Creature Intent Only On Survival. And I Survived. I Was Raped By Orderlies, Gnawed On By Rats And Poisoned By Tainted Food. I Was Chained In Padded Cells, Strapped Into Strait-jackets And Half-drowned In Ice Baths. And I Survived. The Asylum Itself Was A Steel Trap, And I Was Not Released From Its Jaws Alive And Victorious. I Crawled Out Mutilated, Whimpering And Terribly Alone. But I Did Survive.

There Comes A Point When A Dream Becomes Reality And Reality Becomes A Dream.

But I Was Sure Of One Thing. If God Were A Father, With Children, That Cleanliness I Had Been Feeling Wasn't God.

Have You Ever Had A Broken Heart?

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