"You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you."
— Rankine, Claudia (b. 1963)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Publisher
Graywolf Press
Date
2014
Metaphor
"You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you."
Metaphor in Context
The world is wrong. You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you. Who did what to whom on which day? Who said that? She said what? What did he just do? Did she really just say that? He said what? What did she do? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? Do you remember when you sighed?
(p. 63)
(p. 63)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014).
Date of Entry
10/28/2015
