Rachel Cusk

Haven’t you heard? Out of suffering comes truth

Woman always get hurt through the child. She like a kite: she all crazy visible but the wind that blow her invisible. Better not to have the child. Better be a nobody to anybody

MEDEA

What kind of love is it that needs the whole world to disappear before it can exist?

Pause.

That isn’t love. It’s genocide.

Pause

made love, war, conversation,
we made warmth, food, a home.
We made children, our children.
Who owns the story, the teller or the told?
I said, don’t ask who owns it – it can’t be separated.
The magic works through us together, I said.
But he was curious.
He wanted to know what he was.
Except that no one really wants to know that, do they

Divorce is very ageing, you know. Women tend to lose weight – they get all excited by that, but it’s far too late. They’re mistaking death for youth

There’s no such thing as justice. There’s only survival. The question is, how much do you want to survive?

MEDEA

On those terms, not at all.

But you’re just the vessel. You don’t make anything

And in that same moment, I realised darkness was coming.

MESSENGER

One tries to keep a balanced view
of humans and the things they do;
but speaking for moi and moi alone
this is too naughty to condone.
What could be easier to condemn
than a mother abandoning her children?
A mother’s task is to protect:
unnatural should she defect.
Surely she should take the hit –
let him get away with it –
spare those lambs the fear and pain,
sacrifice herself, not them

But the future belongs to the bold and the amorous:
abandoned wives are at best unglamorous.
You expect her to step aside,
acknowledge defeat by the new young bride;
shout a bit maybe, cry her woe,
but ultimately – to let him go.
Deep down we want her to, let’s admit:
the social order depends on it.
Anything else is too much of a chore:
this whining about justice is a bit of a bore.
We’ve all homes to go to – the show must go on