Chapter 50: poem I wrote after I asked my friend if her new boyfriend cares about me
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The speaker punishes herself by wearing jeans, then interrupts her partner’s video game to confess that reading more might improve her mood. After filming themselves having sex, both feel insecure about their bodies—she thinks she looks too big, he thinks he looks too small. They watch the sunset together, a rare moment of peace. The speaker reveals a plan to lose weight by eating only cucumbers. Her therapist urges gentleness, but the speaker finds talking to her therapist nearly impossible, despite paying for the sessions. She finds some solace by walking along a low river and skipping rocks. As she finishes the poem, she is angry with herself for not having already started another one, highlighting a relentless creative pressure.
Key Events
- The speaker wears jeans as a form of self-punishment.
- She interrupts her partner’s video game to share a thought about reading and mood.
- The couple films themselves having sex, then both express body dissatisfaction.
- They watch the sunset together, described as “a nice thing to do.”
- The speaker decides to lose weight by eating only cucumbers.
- She struggles to connect with her therapist, whom she is paying.
- She walks by the river, which is low enough to allow skipping rocks.
- The poem ends with the speaker frustrated for not starting another poem.
Character Development
The speaker’s inner critic is on full display: she punishes herself with uncomfortable clothes, critiques her body after sex, and plans an extreme diet. Yet she seeks small pleasures (sunset, skipping rocks) and shares her feelings with her partner, suggesting a desire for connection. Her frustration with therapy indicates a gap between knowing she needs help and actually receiving it. The poet persona here is raw and self-aware, caught between aspiration and self-sabotage. The partner appears patient and present, pausing his game and joining her to watch the sunset.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Body Image and Self-Punishment: The jeans “to punish myself” and the cucumber diet symbolize harsh self-judgment, especially after filming sex.
- Intimacy and Performance: Filming sex turns a private act into a recorded performance, which then invites body scrutiny.
- Therapy’s Limits: The speaker pays for therapy but finds it “fucking impossible” to talk; the therapist’s advice to “be gentle” clashes with the speaker’s compulsions.
- Nature as Respite: The low river and skipping rocks offer a simple, grounding activity, contrasting with the speaker’s mental turmoil.
- Creative Anxiety: The speaker’s final self-criticism—being mad for not starting another poem—reflects the pressure poets place on themselves to produce work constantly.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter distills many of the book’s core tensions: the gap between how the speaker wants to feel (cared for, gentle) and how she actually treats herself (punishing, critical). The title’s question about whether a friend’s boyfriend cares about the speaker goes unanswered, suggesting that the speaker’s real worry is about her own worth—not someone else’s. The poem’s confessional style and everyday details (video games, filming sex, cucumbers) ground big themes in relatable, messy moments. It reinforces Cohen’s focus on the performance of modern femininity and the relentless inner critic that keeps the speaker from feeling “enough.”
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does the poem contrast moments of connection with moments of self-criticism?
The speaker reaches out to her partner by interrupting his game and later watches the sunset with him, but these moments are immediately undercut by her body shame after filming sex and her punishing diet plan. The connecting actions are framed as “nice things to do,” yet they do not quiet her inner critic. This contrast shows how self-judgment can invade even shared experiences.
2. What does the cucumber diet reveal about the speaker’s relationship with her body?
The extreme, unsustainable plan (“only cucumbers”) reflects a punitive approach to weight loss rather than a health‑conscious one. It echoes the earlier jeans “to punish myself,” suggesting the speaker sees her body as something to control through deprivation. The diet also contradicts her therapist’s call for gentleness, underscoring the struggle between self‑care and self‑harm.
3. Why does the speaker end the poem frustrated about not having started another one?
The final lines reveal that even completing a poem does not bring satisfaction; instead, the speaker immediately worries about future output. This anxiety mirrors the creative pressure Cohen explores throughout the book—the feeling that one must constantly produce to justify oneself. It also parallels her body‑image obsession: never enough, never done.