Running with Scissors

My name is Augusten Burroughs.

Where do I begin to tell the story of how my mother left me,

and then I left my mother?

Maybe I should begin with the part about how she'd keep me home from school.

That's how close we were.

I was so crazy about her.

Oh, hello, Miss Mimm, this is Deirdre Burroughs calling.

Augusten won't be attending school today.

I over-conditioned my hair.

-He over-conditioned his hair. -And the party.

And he has to help me with the dinner party.

Thank you.

My mother was crazy about me too.

I've always known that.

I guess it doesn't matter where I begin,

because nobody's gonna believe me anyway.

Augusten.

Wake up. Wake up.

Augusten. Wake up.

I need you.

Okay. Testing. Testing. Can you hear me?

"Childhood is gone. What remains?

"Childhood is gone. And youth.

"And ties with people I have loved are broken now.

"My grief is more than I can easily contain.

"My grief builds this town anew

"and raises all the dead to walk with me this day.

"What's left?

"My future seems nefarious,

"drained of mystery

"known in my bones.

"Most of all, what I will miss

"is the extravagance of my entire future

"stretched out before me like a highway in the desert.

"Waves of heat rising up, wrinkling the air.

"I weep for what is gone.

"And I weep for myself."

Okay, now I need your honest reaction. Did it feel powerful to you?

Emotionally charged?

It really does seem like something you'd read in The New Yorker.

You really think so?

The New Yorker's very selective. They don't publish just anyone.

I really think they would publish this.

That thing with your paralyzed sister, that was great.

Well, we'll see.

I just got a rejection letter from The Virginia Quarterly.

That worries me.

Of course, if The New Yorker did accept this poem, your grandmother would see it.

I can't imagine what she would say.

But I can't let her reaction keep me from publishing.

Augusten,

your mother was meant to be a very famous woman.

I have a reading. I have books to sign. I told you to be here at 4:00. It's 4:30.

-I got stuck in traffic. -Bullshit. You're trying to sabotage me.

Wanna play checkers, Dad?

Not right now, son. My back is out, I've got papers to grade and I'm very tired.

So why don't you go outside and play with the dog for a little while?

But I'm sick of Cream. All she wants to do is sleep.

She's an old lady.

Testing. One, two, three.

Thank you for coming to my poetry reading tonight.

"Childhood is gone. What remains?

"Childhood is gone. And youth."

"And ties with people I have loved are broken now.

"My grief is more than I can easily contain.

"What's left?

"My future seems nefarious

"drained of mystery

"known in my bones."

Thank you.

I don't understand.

I polish my allowance.

I boil it clean, then polish it with silver polish.

But why, Augusten? Why?

Because I like shiny things.

I really don't see myself in you at all.

I'm more like my mom.

I wanna be special and I wanna be famous.

Are you going to a funeral?

No. No, sweetie. It's a gown for public appearances. You wanna cut?

See, the plan is, I'm announced, at some place grand and serious

like Carnegie Hall.

And I come out in this.

And I stand in front of a black velvet curtain.

I'm gonna demand that in my contract.

And that way, everything fades away, except my writing.

The mail came.

"And when the sun comes out

"the daffodil looks skyward.

"Wet from the rain

"but not broken.

"Triumphant trumpet."

Did you like it, Deirdre?

I've been working on it since the last meeting of the poetry club.

You said, "Write what you know."

I love to garden so I thought I would write about dirt and the sun.

It's shit, Fern.

It's sentimental. It's emotionally dishonest.

It implodes into nothingness. I was bored.

Were you bored, Christy?

It sort of didn't go anywhere.

You didn't tap into your creative unconscious, Fern.

Honey.

I'm sorry, Deirdre.

I so wanted to have a creative outlet and I thought maybe this was it.

But you're right. It's terrible.

If Anne Sexton writes about flowers, Fern, the poem isn't about the goddamn flowers.

The flowers would wilt and rot.

She'd use metaphor to explore her dead marriage, her pain. You understand?

Sexton's therapist told her to write poetry as a way to exorcize her rage.

Now, she's not a housewife. She's a rock 'n' roller. Okay?

Last week in Boston, 2000 people waited in a fucking blizzard to hear her read.

That's power recovered. So that's what you need to do, Fern.

You need to recover by expressing your anger.

I am angry.

-Steve takes me for granted. -There it is again. Men.

I'm so sorry.

No, don't you dare apologize, Fern.

You funnel that rage into the only escape you have. Your art.

Who wants to read next?

Christy, you're hiding.

I'm just not quite there.

Get the rage on the page, women.

-You infantile tyrant! -Jesus.

You'd like nothing more than to see me slit my wrists!

Why don't you just settle down? You know, you are hysterical.

You're so goddamn hysterical!

-I'm hysterical? You think this is hysterical? -Yes!

You poor bastard! You're so repressed that you...

You mistake creative passion for hysteria! Don't you see?

This is how you're killing me.

Nobody is trying to kill you, Deirdre.

You're doing a perfectly good job of it yourself.

I wish you'd rot in hell. I regret the day I ever married you.

Will you two stop fighting?

This is between me and your father! Your father is the one...

Well, I live here too, you know!

Look at you. Look at your damn face. You got the face of a man twice your age.

Forty-five going on 90!

Will you just shut up?

He's not moving!

No, he's just playing another one of his horribly manipulative games.

Get up, Norman!

Get up, Norman.

Enough of your pranks.

Please don't kill her.

He's not gonna kill me.

He'd rather suffocate me with his horribly oppressive manipulation

and then wait for me to cut my own throat.

Go to bed. Go to bed, Augusten.

You've got school in the morning.

I don't want to go to school.

You've got to go, Augusten!

You can't keep skipping or I'll get arrested.

Why can't we just be a normal family?

Oh, thank God.

Hello there.

Please come in.

I've just been a frantic wreck waiting for you to get here.

It's okay now, Mrs. Burroughs.

Oh, no, please. Call me Deirdre.

Where's Norman, dear?

Oh, he's passed out drunk.

-I see. -I was afraid for my life tonight.

I thought for sure he was gonna kill me, that this would finally be the night.

Would you like a Sanka?

I'd like some slices of bologna with a side of horseradish.

Do you mind, son?

Don't you worry about your parents, buckaroo. We'll get this all sorted out.

Good luck.

I just pray to God Norman doesn't snap.

One of these days he's gonna snap and kill us all.

Enough!

That's not the way to talk around your son.

You need to comfort him, not frighten him.

That's right. I know.

I'm sorry, Augusten. I'm just very upset right now.

Sit down, Deirdre.

Good night, Augusten.

Now.

I'm gonna ask you a number of questions if that's all right with you.

They may seem rather personal. In fact, you may not see the relevance.

But I believe that's up to me, as the doctor, to decide.

So,

your

anxiety level.

How would you describe it?

Well, I'm just frantic.

I'm very, very upset. I'm very anxious.

I feel very emotionally charged.

And I feel like I'm at the end of my rope.

Tell me about your bowel movements.

Have you noticed any changes either in regularity,

or the shape and density of the bowel matter itself?

Is that really...

I mean... Do we have to...

What I'm getting at is constipation. Both literal and subconscious.

Are you constipated in your life, Deirdre?

Stuck?

I am.