Wrong

November 25, 2024

2–3 minutes

Sara without an H > this collection: Fragments of Hell > Hypocrisy > Friendship > Possessiveness > Reputation > Status > Cowardice > Gangsta > Narcissists > Wrong > Judgement >> next collection: Peanu(t)s

Sonnet on Wrong

You take great pride in "wrongness", but wherefore?
Dissociate yourself from all your fears, 
And tranquillise your conscience ever more,
Extend your adolescence twenty years.
Your life's work as you tell it, drugged-up "slut",
Are all your yesterdays a sorry tale
Of sound and fury, by an idiot,
A walking shadow gone beyond the pale. 

Your solitude will make you strut and fret,
But just because you hate to be alone,
Don't damage those who've got what you can't get:
Intelligence and children of their own.
Two wrongs don't make a writer linger long;
The only way you're right is that you're wrong. 


© Sara Nicola Ruth

Background to the poem

This sonnet is written in memory of Jeramie Ratliff who overdosed on Dextromethorphan earlier this month [November 2014]. He was aged 20 and had a baby son of his own.

A devastated father takes to Facebook with a blunt message after his son dies of OD

After his 20-year old son overdosed on drugs, Mike Stollings decided to post a photo of his body at the funeral home on Facebook out of grief and guilt. The tragic photo of Jeramie Ratliff was soon shared over 7,700 times. Stollings said he hopes it may help others. Jeramie leaves behind an infant son of his own.

[This extract is from Mike Stollings’ impassioned plea to his dead son’s contemporaries.]

“those of you that use just for a little fun here and there. you don’t have to use but you like to party a little. think for a second about how there are those around you with larger mental issues. like jeramie, he was carrying some mental baggage that even i can’t comprehend. by partying with these people you encourage them and enable them to do it to use drugs as an escape. that is the every last thing people like this need. these people need actual help. these people need encouragement to heal in healthy ways. they need to feel genuine love and uplifting encouragement not encouragement to get high again. think about the influence you have on these people. think about the path of destruction being left behind…….people, learn from this. help make something positive from this tragedy. walk away from this lifestyle. find someone that loves you and ask them for help. don’t let this become you. don’t do this to your family.”

a note on word use

While the word “slut” is traditionally an insult meaning a woman who is easily manipulated into sex because she has no self respect, in soundsystem culture “slut” means someone who is so into something, anything really, that they can’t resist it. I guess this means they could also be easily manipulated, although being any kind of “slut” seems to be a matter of pride.

This is not the same thing as reclaiming the word “slut” to mean a woman with self respect who has sex with whomsoever she wants to, because she wants to.