“When You (Don’t) Get Better” & Remember Rage
From Passages North, August 13th, 2021
Poem: “When You (Don’t) Get Better”
“When You (Don’t) Get Better” is a poem written by Camille Ferguson, and published online at Passages North, that works to express the frustration of pretending to be someone you’re not by trying to hide the essential, and very real, person you truly are.
You outsmart the sad parts. Trick it with lavender oil, grapefruit facemasks, songs it can’t be nostalgic to. Happy lamps, citrus scented dish soap. You’re privy to its triggers, how long drives on country roads get so dark. You know all the turns. So you take the others. You drive through orchards. You pick fruit from the window of your car. You dip it in chocolate. You eat sliced apples in bowls of spinach, lemon poppy seed dressing. Goat cheese. You put on your best sweater, write your brother in basic an upbeat letter, you look in the mirror & say I can be this person.
— “When You (Don’t) Get Better”
Camille Ferguson
Passages North online, August 13th, 2021
“When You (Don’t) Get Better” has the cantor and voice of a creation story, a poem with a how-we-came-to-be narrative with a has a serious and urgent tone that addresses the poem’s speaker. The speaker’s past self, perhaps, or a current self who is too busy being caught up in the confused moments of a journey, too busy being pulled in two directions to remember, or recall, what’s been endured and what’s at stake. The poem also carries with it some semblance of a (dark) fairy tale: naturalistic imagery of landscapes seen along the journey, dreams that deliver pointed information, and – formally – ampersands create a playful, visual disturbance on the page that pulls closer the clauses they join, condensing the space between, hurrying us towards rage and revelation.
Awake, the sky riots. The fruit rots. You stomp the pedal, it’s an apricot. You’re raw, alive in the way that hurts the best. You’re the color of an almost healed bruise, & you push it.
— “When You (Don’t) Get Better”
Camille Ferguson
Passages North online, August 13th, 2021
The further we journey with the poem the more chaotic and abstract it becomes. The sentences become staccatoed and the imagery overtakes the poem, manifesting the emotion beneath the speaker’s surface: there’s more natural description of fruits and storms and raw, unfiltered anger. It’s at this point that the tone becomes both pure and organic, hiding nothing while expressing everything. The speaker’s not only admitting they’ve been hiding their self from the world but they’re now admitting the damage that has caused, and by translating that feeling into natural imagery, however fraught and energetic, the poem moves to make the speaker’s once hidden queerness a metaphor that’s connected directly to the natural world, and by doing so naturalizes the queerness they once sought to hide. Being gay is natural, the poem expresses artistically, angrily, and rightfully so, but that frustration and anger – the harm at having tried to deny that – remains, and so it remains with us at the poem’s end, a sore and unforgettable mark like the bruise in the poem’s closing line.
Cocktail:
Remember Rage
You remember rage, exquisite. Lovely in its poison. Throat-screams, driving with your knees. You remember misery & exhilaration. You remember the womb before that second X, stuck in some safe place between gender, & world.
— “When You (Don’t) Get Better”
Camille Ferguson
Passages North online, August 13th, 2021
Remember Rage is a cocktail that appears delicate & soft &, maybe, misnamed. You’d be mistaken, as people who judge books by covers are known to be – but you’ve never been one for idioms, hardly know what that means. Instead, you take a sip & smile. Sweet apricot, subtle & bright pear with bracing citrus. This is what you expected but half hoped for something more, something with bite, with teeth. & then it’s there, first as a ginger heat across your tongue & then as a sting in the back of your throat. You sip again & again & you remember that rage isn’t always a kicked-in door or a broken nose, a missing tooth or a shattered plate. Sometimes it’s a slow burn from the inside that’s miraculously wrapped in sweet invitation. You remember that rage is always nearby, often just beneath the surface, & you sip it.
Remember Rage
2oz Pear Vodka (Belvedere Organics Pear & Ginger) or Pear-Infused Vodka*
0.5oz Apricot Liqueur
0.5oz Dry Vermouth
0.25oz Ginger Syrup (1pt Ginger Juice:1pt White Sugar)
0.5oz Grapefruit & Lemon Juices Blend (1pt Grapefruit:2pt Lemon)
1 dash Hellfire Bitters
2 dashes + 1 dash on top of Lavender Bitters
Add all ingredients except the third dash of Lavender Bitters to a shaking tin.
Add ice and shake for 10-15 seconds.
Pour into a coupe or other stemmed glass and add the last dash of lavender bitters on top. Garnish with ginger & lemon peel flag.
*Pear-Infused Vodka: In a sealable jar combine one pear diced into small cubes (your favorite variety, Bosc or D’Anjou are common) with 12oz of 80or 90 proof Vodka and one strip of lemon peel. Shake to combine and allow to infuse at room temperature for 24 hours (and up to 48) then strain solids out and pass infusion through a coffee filter.
Other Options: The more ripe and soft the pear, the sweeter the infusion will be. Optionally, you can slow roast a sliced pear in a 250f oven for 15-30 minutes or until it begins to brown and juices start to run. You can add one 3” cinnamon stick, one clove and one clove to the infusion if you want to spice it. You can also use rum instead of vodka, or bourbon or gin or literally anything. Rage in your own flavor!