Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale Excerpt- pg 39 lyrics

The woman handed me one of
The magazines it had
A pretty woman on it, with no clothes on
Hanging from the ceiling be 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, my mother said 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
Flames 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, 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 in
Any case is 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