Surrogate Screamer

If I had limbs enough,
I would buck and punch
and force you to listen to me.

But I don’t
even have legs,
or so it seems,
to kick you in the chest
in the shoulders;
I can’t shake you,
to fill you
with enough nutrients
for self-sustenance.

So I yell into a cushion,
speak too loud in line
at the store
and overall treat people
like hardware tools
as I drink too much
wine and see patients
while sleep-deprived.

Do you know who’s real,
what’s real, or what could
be only illusions?

Is it too late when
we finally see your face
after all that’s taken place?

— yiqi 26 October 2025 7:30 pm

This poem came to me while I was listening to Wheel’s song “The Change” and thinking about Mary Bronstein‘s film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025).  Bronstein also wrote the screenplay to this nerve-wracking trek into the headspace of a woman who really just wants someone to tell her what to do as much as she might not actually want to do any of it.  If Linda (a stellar Rose Byrne) could just sit on a bench in a park, in the middle of a forest, or in the gardens of a villa with no other humans within shouting distance, she would probably do so in a heartbeat (with a bottle of wine and a pizza in tow).

Instead, she has to chauffeur her young daughter (whose presence is primarily portrayed through voice and a glimpse of the odd limb) daily to an eating disorders program in a hospital and put up with an it’s-the-rules parking attendant; field phone calls with her offscreen husband; check up on the state of the hole in their apartment ceiling; try not to be that rude to the hotel employee who’s just doing his job and trying to be helpful (A$AP Rocky); see patients in a mental health practice and attempt to solicit guidance from a fellow therapist (Conan O’Brien), and somehow internalize that her daughter’s medical condition is not her fault.  

I shan’t say more about the themes or story because you should watch it.  You will be asking and guessing more or less through the entire film the following questions:
~ Is she having a mental breakdown?
~ Are certain characters actually a figment of her imagination or manifestation of her fragile psyche?
~ Is she really supposed to be unsympathetic or pitiful?
~ How much unreliable narrator territory are we in?

You don’t have to superficially relate to Linda’s struggles to appreciate the way her character is a surrogate screamer for anyone who just wants someone to listen to them… and maybe not be the one with the answers for once.  

The trailer does not give away any of the really cinematically satisfying parts but does set the tone well.  Rose Byrne loses her Australian accent so successfully that I forget what her default accent sounds like.  Here’s a Q&A with the cast and filmmaker.  

Pic cred: Youtube screengrab