She Didn't Mean to Do It

Daisy Fried

Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad.
She didn't mean to do it.
Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs,
go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces,
but no more. Certain thrills knock you flat
on your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade
and they fade. You falter and they're gone, gone, gone.
Certain thrills puff off you like smoke rings,
some like bell rings growing out, out, turning
brass, steel, gold, till the whole world's filled
with the gonging of your thrills.
But oh, she was sad, she was just sad, sad,
and she didn't mean to do it.


I think that this poem is talking about regret. The subject of the poem seems to have
given up to some kind of "thrill" in her life, maybe a temptation, but is now
regretting ever having done it. The title of the poem is "She Didn't Mean to Do It."
By looking at the title itself, one can tell that the subject has made a mistake
and her actions weren't necessarily intentional. "Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad.
She didn't mean to do it." These first two lines of the poem shows the subject's
grief. She regrets her actions but it is now too late to turn around and go back.
"Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs, go no further than your fingers, move
your legs through their paces, but no more." This line shows that some temptations,
you are able to push away from. Although you are tempted by them and may take
a step towards it, "but no more," you don't go any further than that. Although you
reach for them with your fingers, you know how to stop yourself. "Certain thrills
knock you flat on your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade and they fade."
I wasn't sure what this line meant but I thought that it was saying how some of these
"thrills" are so tempting at first, but with time "they fade." This assumption was
supported by the next line which was "You falter and they're gone, gone, gone."
Although you are swayed and allured by this temptation, they are "gone, gone, gone"
sooner than you know it. The next line was "Certain thrills puff off you like smoke rings,
some like bell rings growing out, out, turning brass, steel, gold, till the whole world's
filled with the gonging of your thrills." I thought that this line meant that some "thrills"
are just too tempting to push off and ignore. They are like "bell rings growing out, out,"
getting louder and louder and bigger and bigger, just as the rings get bigger when
they are further away from the center. These "thrills" are worth so much to you that
it seems as if the whole world is urging you to do it and fall for the temptation.
At the end of the poem, the author repeats the first line,
"Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad. She didn't mean to do it." This emphasizes
the fact that she has fallen for one of the thrills, but she regrets it.