The Torture

     Although one must share a similar experience to feel empathy for another, I feel I can empathize with the sentiments of love and despair in John Berryman's "145." The poem is short yet powerful, and it allows the reader to feel the pain and torture of its author. We can see that Berryman is torn from the beginning when he talks about how the subject of his poem has "done no wrong," (line 1) yet he feels despair and after forty years is still struggling with forgiveness. The speaker acknowledges that the subject did not mean to damage the speaker and his brother when he writes, "but he did not swim out...to take one of us along...as company in the defeat sublime" (lines  6-8). The speaker was never the intended target of the subject's actions, but the speaker is still conflicted with the subject for putting him in such a position where hurt and pain will be inevitable. Imagery is used in lines 10-12 when the speaker describes the action upon which the poem revolves: "he only, very early in the morning/ rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window/ and did what was needed." The depressing tone of the poem and mention of a gun allows the reader to infer that the subject took his own life. By adding that the action was necessary, the speaker is trying to find closure and reason for the suicide because it completely devastated his life. After forty years he still "cannot read that wretched mind" (line 13). Furthermore, he puts a dash between "I-I'm/ trying to forgive" (line 14-15), demonstrating how that inner torment is still lingering. The final line of the poem addresses that the suicide allows "Henry to live on" (line 18), demonstrating that the speaker knew the act was inevitable and necessary for the subject, but inside he will always feel a mixture of love, despair, and hatred towards the subject for bringing so much pain and suffering upon their family.