This has been a poem, a song, a film and required reading for hundreds of High School juniors. I wrote the poem at Mount Mercy College in 1997. The song was first performed in 2003 and was later recorded for the Rook Rumors album. The film premiered at DePaul University in 2006. It was only after I shared the story of the film with a high school buddy turned English teacher, that he informed me that he had been assigning it for several years in his classes as an example of tragic irony.
The images and video on this page are from Ben Chapel’s film version of this poem. Christian Hales and Deb Vogt play the young lovers. The film was shot in my home and studio, Transamoeba.
My Darlings Little Privacy
The finest girl – the dearest child
Is talking to me on the line that I dialed
Making me crazy and making me wild
Wild because she is thinking of me
It is finally my turn I’m the one she is choosing
In answer to prayers that I’ve been misusing
But there is no way that I will be losing
Losing this one that said yes
And as I lie here by my bride
I’m reeling with unselfish pride
In love with this beauty asleep by my side
That says that her heart is all mine
And the more that I love her, the more that I’m near
I see one more thing she holds dear
One more thing whose loss she’d fear
Her little porcelain privacy
This little clay box handed down through the ages
Held my darling’s private pages
Of deepest thoughts and darkest rages
Rages never once of me
But the more that I love her, the more that I’m near
The more I see something so queer
The more it rapes my deepest fear
Of my darlings little privacy
After misunderstandings or more often a fight
In her shy little corner with shy little light
When she thinks that I’m safely
Removed from her sight
A page slips into her privacy
And when I promise at 6 but show up at 8
Even with an excuse for why I am late
In a shy little gesture I interpret as hate
A page slips into her privacy
When I’m drunk at a party with all of her friends
And ignore dirty looks that my true lover sends
Even after tries when we are home for amends
Still a page slips into her privacy
What should I think – why shouldn’t I ponder
Why shouldn’t my mind continuously wander
And hose can my heart ever grow finder
When my darling’s best friend is her privacy
I must take a peek – if only to ease
Because feelings inside me are starting to seize
And are boiling up like some dreadful disease
About questions and wonders and privacy
NO, I must stop this insanity – I must get a hold
I must stop my heart from being so cold
I must stand on my morals I have to be bold
It would be wrong to peek into her privacy
Now we fight almost daily – I’m constantly taunted
With pages and stoppages daily I’m haunted
And nothing inside of me has ever so wanted
To do what I must do today
My lover stepped out – but her privacy did not
So I seized this moment for I could not be caught
It was finally my chance to prove what I’d thought
But her privacy is not easily opened
The porcelain box had no stitch or no seam
And the one hole at top left no way to redeem
All the pages inside that had painted this scene
About lovers and secrets and privacy
While holding the box I knew not which to choose
Should I destroy this odd package she’d disparage to lose
Or go bombarded by mental abuse
Of questions and wonders and privacy
How else could I end all this juvenile teasing?
The decisional roar in this room is not ceasing
And the pain in my head is increasing
And I fear that I’m losing my mind
I upturned the table I kicked out the door
And I paced back and forth on the living room floor
‘til my lover at last returned from her chore
and saw me with her privacy in hand
I now looked at this girl and despise
All the tears that well up in her eyes
And curse at her struggles and now useless cries
As she tried to get back what was hers
I watched as she fell to her knees
But ignored her last promise and pleas
And I broke through her clutches with sharp bitter ease
And then cursed at my darling again
I was burning with rage and with spite
And the fire of pages that ended each night
So I heaved the great box with all of my might
And it broke on the wall by the door
With the pages all around me blowing
And eagerness inside me growing
For secrets I would soon be knowing
I let not one paper escape
And as I sat with the treasure I’d earned
I read the pages for which I’d burned
And was sickened by the secrets learned
The same text repeated on each
And as I sat there on the floor
My lover walking out the door
I read the pages each once more
They all said YOU ARE FORGIVEN