I am already dead. And thank God, really. It’s such a relief. To have that out. To be done with the deviling drama. At least that’s over with! I think, taking a hydrant photo, chewing on sugar cane. When you already know the worst, you can face the rest. And the rest is just me. Here. The rest is just this. This peace, and this piece. Of history and time.
I’m not myself
When you think about it, the death explanation is the one that makes the most sense. It’s the only thing that accounts for it, really. The nothing. And space. This void in my head where an intellect used to be. This life-well I’ve filled with various poisons and anecdotes to loneliness. Serums to quell various maladies and states of living. A life-well teeming with bats, and which I lean over and into on days that burst with joy, and just scream. And the scream just echoes and echoes and descends to the toxic mess at the bottom.
This is death, then. Ha! Well it can’t get any worse than this, then, can it? Thank God. It’s a relief to know what has caused them. These symptoms. The regressive non-firing of synapse. The aggressive firing of sin.
This is not how health should feel
I’m sorry. I know I’m repeating myself. Repetition of thoughts. Repetition of sounds. It is part of my narrative “style” to do that. And it has outlived me, it seems. It is like a cockroach. Our narrative styles outlive us all, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your circumstances and your feelings about history. Your feelings about things like “narrative style.” Jesus.
“All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music,” said Pater. I am always thinking in songs. I am always wishing for music.
We’re all dead now, join hands and we’ll sing
To the glory of hell and the virtue of sin
Let me try this on: The last five years of my life never happened.
Or maybe this: The last five years of my life are the only years in my life that have ever happened.
I like both of these refrains. These five years have been the most certain of years and they have been the most dubious. I’ve never been so unfocused. And at the same time, my vision has never remained so consistent. My voice, never so clear. But while I seem to have all the words for music, I lack all the letters, the vowels, the consonants, the goddamned notes and tones with which to construct them.
I have been reduced to grunts and laughing and fucking and piss.
I’m dead now, can you hear the relief
Part of the reason we can’t understand a thing, a concept, a thought, is that we don’t have language for it. And yet, the reason we don’t have language for that thing, that concept, that thought, is we don’t fully understand it. It’s like a chicken and an egg staring at one another over a game of Yahtzee.
My grandmother used to like Yahtzee. She played it with me when my brain was forming. She played it with me over sugar and fruit and Italian cookies at her dining room table on quiet summer afternoons that were full of play. That were full of her fun and her energy and her voice.
She told good stories.
She had good narrative style.
She recently turned 91. She still laughs sometimes, though I don’t think she knows why. She had some good luck. She has had a good run. That’s probably a good enough reason.
Christ, I have lost my train of thought.
There is something wrong with me.
Let me try this again: I am already dead.
Yes, that seems right to me.
We will come back to this.
We will always return to this, I’m afraid.
Photo: Close, Antony Gormly, Hakone Sculpture Garden, Japan. Taken by Me.
TAGS: Chewing | FrightenedRabbit | Writing