Riverside Desktop Poem Interpretation II

The Riverside Desktop Poem is headlined “Sick of living / unwilling to die”. Its first part “Sick of living” suggests that the author has been significantly depressed at the time the poem was written. The second part of the poem’s headline clearly states “unwilling to die”, indicating that, in spite of the depression, the author has considered suicide but does not consider it as an option based on a clear and determined decision.

Before we continue with the lines 1-4 of poem text, we would like to review first the lines 5-7 that say “blood spurting, dripping, spilling;”. The words clearly describe a sudden stream or jet of blood, followed by its fall in drops before running out. To underpin this rather extreme vision, the poem’s author even aligned his words in the order of a cascade. Possibly, the author even used the commas and semicolons to symbolize cascading, spilling blood. Apparently, the lines 5-7 refer to the lines 1-4 of the poem that say “cut. clean. if red / clean”. In the context of the lines 5-7, we understand the word “cut.” as “infliction of a wound or wounds”, the word “red” as the synonym for “blood color” and the word “clean” as synonym for “spotless” or “pure”. Taking this one level further, we believe that the author suggests that somebody, in the context of the poem obviously a female, is not pure.

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Furthermore, the author conveys the vision that (female) purity can be (re-)achieved through infliction of cuts and spilling of blood. The Lines 8-9 “all over her new dress” indicate that the author apparently saw the said female often enough to observe or know that she had been wearing a new (red) dress. The lines 10-11 “oh well it was red anyway.” sound quite sarcastic and perfidious to us. We take this as an indication that the author felt certain hatred and that the color of the female’s red dress inspired the author’s blood spilling fantasy. Since the author used the words “all over” in line 8 one can conclude that the author had a larger amount of blood to be spilled in mind. The next lines 12-13, “life draining into an uncertain death” confirm that the blood spilling would even reach a potentially deadly level based on a gradual or even prolonged process of her dying. With the words “she won't die” in the lines 14-15, the poem makes a sudden turn, not bringing the morbid fantasy yet to its final stage. With the words “this time someone ll find her” in the lines 16-17, the author allows the female to be found and subsequently saved by a person other than the author who apparently does not feel such notion. However, the author concludes the poem with the warning “just wait till next time”, suggesting that the author considers the woman’s rescue and survival as a temporary situation only.

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