babe-raham lincoln

lincoln scholars (you've seen them, lanky and lurking at the coffee shop, stovepipe hat in hand, emancipating people) will tell you that as a young man, he suffered two major suicidal periods. his second breakdown is known as the 'fatal first of january.'

imagine a thirty-one year old man, depressed and drinking, ravaging out tortured poetry. he's a dostoyevsky without the epilepsy. a john kennedy toole who didn't go through with it. an elliot smith without a singing voice. he's a dark horse whose end run isn't guaranteed.

a snippet of a poem attributed to lincoln from the 1838 Sangamo Journal newspaper-

"Rip up the organs of my breath
and draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last, my only friend!"

feel that goddamned heart beat. the loneliness, the desire to put it to all rest. lincoln. he went right the hell through it and didn't. i don't know how much inner demon wrestling he had time for, later on, what with the being president and saving the country and all, but i'm glad he made it out of those early years alive.

abraham lincoln, number 3 on my all time list of 'presidents i could get my mouth on.'