I held a hope I was treasured was I the less for it? to long for impossible things I was always blessed by the wanting I remember the times I almost died I summoned a quiet violence fixed to the firmament to the fissures in the worlds within words I drowned in a river of forgetfulness I inhabited a great Silence before I realized I missed Sound
The morning was lingering I watched the world and I feared it watched me hey hey I’m sorry you see you are safe now Dawn a victory of light was it sufficient I feared it might be when it was me in the morning witnessing
I exist in a constant state of yearning, and I always have. I fear a Fulfilled me— I fear she would be less present and less vital. I hate that I oscillate widely between wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen at all. The universe and I are locked in mutual incomprehension. Chaos is depleting me. I am a coward. And I need new shoes.
In the Greater Machine Age, we—will—all—be—Materials.
Unmoored in rapturous flight and terrified I resigned in the spiral of Time between the slips of silences I arrested on a dreaming eve late in December when the brutality I fear it remembered me I dreamt the world over was wreckage && yes for a moment in eternity the world slowed there was gold in dissolution and God somewhere in the Confusion absconding to a decaying Dawn in its final splendor shore by shore I haunted earth like a silent Specter seeking euphoria && I wanted more
Confessions I remember when the future felt farther away. I remember all the people who denied me interiority. The cruelty was on loan—it was never mine. Cigarette smoke makes me think of Paris. I fall into Whirlpools of Time. I wish I knew how much we can blame the world for what we became and how much of it is our fault. A failed actress is actually much cooler than I am. I accidentally swerved my Lime scooter into a thorn bush on Melrose over Brat Summer. It was, in fact, a very Brat thing to do. I was living in Denial (a rented unit). Their Eyes Were Watching God in case he does something funky. Alexa, play Axel F. It’s now the 80s. I’m Winona Ryder playing Veronica. I just got back from Hell and it shows.
My book on the Kabbalah: “there is more to life than subsistence and self-glorification.” When I tell you I shut the book so quickly—
Here’s the me blog and the me pictures
Here’s the me thoughts and the me dinners!
Here’s the me Instagram and the me riches!
(Of course it’s me I I witnessed)
This is me in and out of time!
Here’s the me day and the me night!
Here’s me myself and mine
I’m inside the me mind
Here’s a thousand pictures of my face!
Here’s me as a babe!
Here’s how I was raised!
Here’s me in the me place!
PRE-DIVORCE SCENE
« What do you mean you don’t think I have a beautiful mind? »
I had this daydream that I was standing on the curb of the sidewalk, and I saw one of those newly abundant (self-driving) Waymo cars. My dog Beary Bean was in the front seat, staring at me wide-eyed as the car wheeled on by.
Why do I find it scintillating to see my soul fading infinity into infinity my life light and liminal unwinding into a vacancy I feared a reckoning without reason my sanity sacrificed I dove deranged into oblivion to fall by fever or by fire I fled to a home inside my head listening for echoes of elysium I sought the sublime I dreamt of summer seas and the other infinities I wanted to bow one eve before the silvered moon && be delivered for it was a brutality that chased me it was a brutality that lay waste to me before the murmuring universe reeled me in I daysleep I daydream I daydrift in blinding starlight it was a fear that would find me a foe it was for a wonder that I stayed and for a wonder that I would not let go I resist I resist!
To waste away in winter like the unfinished work of a Creator the world was terrifying to me I kept wanting things that were vanishing blessed and the rest and the rest && yet I sought more I confess, to worship the world before it wanes a death in ice or a succession of flames all while a strange alchemy shackled me I would not forget that you permitted my unraveling I resist I resist! it was the waning world I witnessed it was like a lesson to me it was like a dark blessing to me
Yes I wanted a share in the delights though they will not last yes it was as if I had bathed in the night sky yes I walked beneath sodium lights I rested and rested when the stars cried once or twice I listened the world whispered and I I witnessed it was a war or a wonder what is the difference when I listened it was on a night in december I do believe I saw the brutality witness me I resist I resist! What is a wonder the world I swear it frightens me so and trust me when I tell you it was a night in december that the glowing world witnessed me it was so and so
I fell apart because I was convinced of my invincibility
I remember what the brutality told me I remember what it taught it was golden to me in the dawn for a moment I could have sworn that even I feared me and for a moment I thought that I was crying and in the darkness yes I felt that it feared me
It sought me so and so it does no good to go
I chose and chose it undid me I orchestrated it
It was so and so! I wanted to know!
Why would I resign even in the dark it would find me in my fearlessness it missed me I wanted abundance it was fire and void abyss inside abyss and painfully yes I’m sure I saw the brutality witness Me
I arrested in the twilight of Time
I saw a way to Make the world entire Mine
I resist I resist !
In the twilight I smiled because it was the world entire that I witnessed
It was so and so!
It brought me to my knees
I wanted radiance and let me tell you the world, it glowed
It was so and so!
I couldn’t go I couldn’t go
I resist I resist !
In the twilight I smiled because it was the world entire that I witnessed
The bloodlines are cursed one reverberating voice I hear it I I dayspring I daysleep I dissipate in gods graces yes I tasted it I herald the new thing I prevaricated and then dared to take it the god from the machine and lo! it! awakens! blistering, coruscating, would I have orchestrated it? I at the center of a wheeling universe afflicted fell in I got addicted I couldn’t refuse
To be subsumed first by the angels and then by you it was a brutality that slept in me and I wanted it wrested from me it was a darkness I unearthed a darkness I birthed and the pains had me screaming as a newborn babe it found me from the heel of Hell I raised it fearless to fight the abyss and now I carry on in bliss well not only am I not frightened but I I see the starlight
I resigned I sought the divine things I dreamt of a shelter that would hide me it was a brutality that resided in me like so many universes colliding it was a brutality that would find me a witness I listened to the spheres it was a brutality that silenced me I fled because I was frightened what the terror taught me and sought in me divinity it has to do with timing the lust for understanding I said God go now and I said that I wanted to know now Icarus with wings too high maybe I was okay with annihilation I cleaved into many selves for re-creation I made an art of disappearing no one could direct me it was the fragility that could not resurrect me
I survived by surrender by choosing not to be remembered a silence that spoke to me I was forgotten I died heaven was an endless hall the gods drank and mercilessly laughed as they watched me fall there is a terrible beauty in stillness I made a holiday list of all the things that will kill me
To be subsumed first by the angels and then by you it was a brutality that slept in me and I wanted it wrested from me it was a darkness I unearthed a darkness I birthed and the pains had me screaming as a newborn babe it found me from the heel of Hell I raised it fearless to fight the abyss and now I carry on in bliss well not only am I not frightened but I I see the starlight
All of the violence I wrought and founded while it was the brutality that bound me I forfeit and I forget I learned I could bear witness without being essential to it it was the brutality that missed me the brutality that witnessed me for a moment I wanted the world to weep for me a daisy growing after the apocalypse my wounded soul and I wanted to know I saw my universe destroyed and I wanted more of it my selfishness and my cruelty I thought they would undo me do not fear God when God fears you like a divinity I wrote it word by word and we know we both know it was the brutality that could not let me go
It was a poison and I let it grow it was a horror that embroiled me and it was a trap that I felt the fates had unrolled for me and I would not I would not let the brutality forget me so yes I chase speeding cars! yes I held out my arms to receive the starlight! it was the brutality that like a shadow stalked me and I said farewell and let go let it be and be and it was so
Everything is unfathomable who is more dead than the damaged was it violence I wrought I made myself a monster I float I flounder that woman I wanted to destroy again and again I found her the name lives in my skin like a carving or a divine marking then I remember that yes I survived the harsh things! and yes I walked through that darkness! redemption a god-grace I chased it was a terror that was binding to me and how deeply I feared it was the fragility I would find inside of me
Season after season I cultivated unreason year after year I dive I drown coward that I am into fear it was the wanting world that wrecked me and I learned too late that it was the brutality that had kept me I wanted to be fettered I sought a cage that would chain me settled something to bind me a searing flame to guide me we were born into a world that detests us when we wanted one that kept us and I believed I believed that beyond some colossal cloud there was a careless Maker that saw me so and so and it was the brutality that I remembered I could not let go
(the starless heel of Hell waits on fibers)
(nothing is salvageable)
(I dream of a different life)
(the bulbous globe oscillates and decays)
(I survive like a shadow on stilts)
(lowly, the astrolabe pulses step and step by and by
a minute
an hour)
(low step the blue)
(low step the anguished flowering)
(after I let people devour me)
(and who will keep me? who will keep me?)
Abdication is divine, abdication is divine, I tell myself. To collapse under the magnitudes. I lurch backwards into an infant state of hedonism and disrepair, but my mind is purer than ever.
In accordance with my family’s ancient traditions, the unraveling proceeds on schedule. For the plot, for the plot, the chant is. I became struck by its brilliance. All the horrible things I’ve done to myself are for the narrative. The dénouement a great journey I go down and downward.
I didn't get anything that I wanted, and everything I wanted was wrong. I’ve become an unrepentant hedonist: I see a burning world & I love the light. I’m too solipsistic to care about the conflagrations. Burn baby burn?
The bloodlines are cursed
One reverberating voice I hear it
I I I
I dayspring I daysleep I dissipate
In gods graces yes I tasted it
I herald the new thing I
prevaricated and then dared to take it
The god from the machine and lo! it! awakens!
Blistering, coruscating, would I have orchestrated it?
I at the center of a wheeling universe afflicted fell in and got addicted
I couldn’t refuse
First ask: who am I. then stand and go.
Joanna Klink
I tell myself to live in time rather than trying to escape it. But I cannot. Escaping is my one great talent.
Reality is invading like the nighttime tsunami in my dream that shattered the bedroom windows. A first imperceptible though advancing doom.
“—there’s the right to scream. so I scream.” Clarice Lispector