Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale - Chapter 7 lyrics

The night is mine, my own time
To do with as I will
As long as I am quiet as long
As I don't move as long as
I lie still the difference between lie and
Lay lay is always passive even
Men used to say, I'd like to
Get laid though sometimes they said
I'd like to lay her all this is
Pure speculation I don't really know
What men used to say i had
Only their words for it
I lie, then, inside the room
Under the plaster eye in
The ceiling, behind the whitе
Curtains, between the sheets
Neatly as thеy
And step sideways out of my own
Time out of time though this is time
Nor am I out of it but the night is my time
Out where should I go?



Somewhere good moira, sitting on the edge of
My bed, legs crossed, ankle on knee in her
Purple overalls, one dangly earring, the gold
Fingernail she wore to be eccentric
A cigarette between her
Stubby yellow-ended fingers
Let's go for a beer
You're getting ashes in my bed, I said
If you'd make it you
Wouldn't have this problem, said Moira
In half an hour, I said i had a paper
Due the next day, what
Was it? Psychology, English
Economics we studied things like that
Then on the floor of the room there
Were books, open face down
This way and that, extravagantly
Now, said Moira you don't need
To paint your face
It's only me what's your paper on? I
Just did one on date rape date rape
I said you're so trendy it sounds like
Some kind of dessert date rape
Ha ha, said Moira get your coat
She got it herself and tossed it at
Me i'm borrowing five bucks off you, okay?
Or in a park somewhere
With my mother how old was I?
It was cold, our breaths came
Out in front of us
There were no leaves on the trees
Gray sky, two ducks in the pond
Disconsolate breadcrumbs under my fingers
In my pocket that's it: she said we
Were going to feed the ducks
But there were some women burning books
That's what she was really
There for to see her friends
She'd lied to me, saturdays were
Supposed to be my day i turned away
From her, sulking, towards the ducks
But the fire drew me back
There were some men, too, among the women
And the books were magazines
They must have poured
Gasoline, because the flames shot high
And then
They began dumping the magazines, from boxes
Not too many at a time some
Of them were chanting onlookers gathered
Their faces were happy
Ecstatic almost fire can do that even
My mother's face, usually pale, thinnish
Looked ruddy and cheerful, like
A Christmas card and there
Was another woman, large, with a
Soot smear down her cheek and
An orange knitted cap, i remember her
You want to throw one on
Honey? she said how old was I?
Good riddance to bad rubbish, she said
Chuckling it okay? she said to my mother
If she wants to
My mother said she had a way of talking about
Me to others as if I couldn't hear
The woman handed me one of
The magazines it had
A pretty woman on it, with no clothes on
Hanging from the ceiling by a chain wound
Around her hands i looked at it
With interest it didn't frighten
Me i thought she was swinging
Like Tarzan from a vine, on the TV
Don't let her see it, said my mother here
She said to me, toss it in, quick
I threw the magazine into the
Flames it riffled open in
The wind of it's burning big
Flakes of paper came
Loose, sailed into the air, still on fire
Parts of women's bodies, turning to black
Ash, in the air, before my eyes
But then what happens, but then what happens?
I know I lost time
There must have been needles, pills
Something like that i couldn't have
Lost that much time without help
You have had a shock, they said
I would come up through
A roaring and confusion
Like surf boiling i can
Remember feeling quite calm
I can remember screaming
It felt like screaming though
It may have been only a whisper
Where is she? What have you done with her?
There was no night or day
Only a flickering after
A while there were chairs again, and a bed
And after that a window
She's in good hands, they said with people
Who are fit you are unfit
But you want the best for her don't you?
They showed me a picture of her
Standing outside on a lawn
Her face a closed oval her light hair
Was pulled back tight behind her head
Holding her hand was a woman
I didn't know she
Was only as tall as the woman's elbow
You've killed her, I said she looked
Like an angel, solemn, compact, made of air
She was wearing a dress I'd never seen
White and down to the ground

I would like to believe this is a story I'm
Telling i need to believe it i must
Believe it those who can
Believe that such stories
Are only stories have a better chance
If it's a story I'm telling
Then I have control over the
Ending then there will be an
Ending, to the story
And real life will come after it i
Can pick up where I left off
It isn't a story I'm telling
It's also a story I'm telling
In my head as I go along
Tell, rather than write
Because I have nothing to write with and
Writing is in any case forbidden
But, if it's a story, even in my head
I must be telling it to
Someone you don't tell
A story only to yourself
There's always someone else
Even when there is no one
A story is like a letter dear
You, I'll say just you
Without a name attaching a name attaches
You to the world of fact, which is riskier
More hazardous: who knows what
The chances are
Out there, of survival, yours? I
Will say you, you, like an old love song you
Can mean more than one
You can mean thousands i'm not
In any immediate danger, i'll say to you
I'll pretend you can hear me
But, it's no good, because I know you can't