i am done, finally. it ended better, and more bitter, than i was expecting. at least i can say that i accomplished one thing today, besides feeling sorry for myself and hating my life.-----
. . .the trees calligraphic
we were quiet. there was nothing left of anything.
my laboratory, my depository. into it i can stuff the books i choose, the television shows, the movies, my opinion about elected officials, historical events, neighbors, passerby. . .my captive audience, forced to ingest everything i deem worthwhile.
we cannot be stopped from looking with pity upon all the world's sorry inhabitants, they unblessed by our charms, unchallenged by our trials, unscarred and thus weak, gelatinous.
i look through their windshields for the faces of those coming at us, for a sign, for their understanding, fro their trust, and i find their trust and they go by. our car thrums loudly and iturn up the radio because i can.
or rather, it was not at all perfect, but was far less imperfect than anything else we'd seen
'a few years ago' has a comfortable distance. the blood is dry, the scabs hardened, peeled. early on was different. . .at that the haircutting woman stopped, went through the antique saloon0style doors to the back room and stayed there for a while. she came back red-eyed. he felt terrible. he is always feeling terrible, when the innocent, benign questions of unsuspecting strangers yield the bizare answer he must provide.
this is just a caricature, this, the skeleton of experience
i want to save everything and preserve all this but also want it all gone- can't decide what's more romantic, preservation or decay.
i mean, you can't always suffer. it's hard to suffer all the time. but i suffer enough. i suffer sometimes.
why do you want to share your suffering?
by sharing it i will dilute it.
i can tell from their clothes, their walks, their hair and hands, i know all the bad things that they've done. i know how they've failed and how they will fail and how miserable they are.
oh please. what would a brain do if not these sorts of exercise? i have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. i'd lose my mind.
i give you all of the best things i have, and while these things are things that i like, memories that i treasure, good or bad, like the pictures of my family on my walls i can show them to you without diminishing them. i can afford to give you everything.
these things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. what does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? he leaves it where he molts.
dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning french or collecting scarves. and it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. and subjective. so fuck it.
it was like that in a way, a heightened sense of terror born of doubt, a lack of predictability in his behavior
this is fiction now, it's fucking fiction.
so instead of lamenting the end of unmediated experience, i will celebrate it, revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its dozen or so echoes in art and media, the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha!
i'll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. the core is the core is the core. there is always the core, that can't be articulated.
the drunkenness, i guessed, would add to the whole endeavor a haze of mystery, not to mention a romantic fluidity that i could not otherwise count on. i should be desperate, raggedy, semi-coherent, stumbling from place to place. it seemed much more fitting than being calculating and sober, would strip things to their core, would eliminate a layer or two of self-conscious white noise, would allow me to do more asinine things.
i hang up, blow hot air into my hands. i'm a moron. someone will see me here, back in town for the first time since i left, using the phone outside the train station. no one uses this phone. then again, no one will be surprised. they wlil have expected something like this, from me - they know what happened, will assume that i've finally hit bottom, that i'm homeless and on crack. did i ever belong in this town?
they know i am not them. i am something else. i am deformed, am a hundred years old.
we would all be feeling vibrations from it all, or they were all inside us, too, moving elliptically, or through our blood and there would be music, ELO maybe, Xanadu maybe, did she really like ir or just tolerate it for our sake?
but we both knew it was over, and the great, oddly wonderful thing was that neither of us really cared anymore - oh we cared, yes, but we were ready.
finally, the strange comfort of knowing the end, its parameters and terms.
when you're all sleeping so many sleeping i am somewhere on some stupid tickety scaffolding and i'm trying to get your stupid fucking attention i've been trying to show you this, just been trying to show you this - what the fuck does it take to show you motherfuckers, what does it fucking take what do you want how much do you want because i am willing and i'll stand before you and i'll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and i've been so old for so long, for you, for you, i want it fast and right through me - oh do it, do it, you motherfuckers, do it do it you fuckers, finally, finally, finally.
we were quiet. there was nothing left of anything.
my laboratory, my depository. into it i can stuff the books i choose, the television shows, the movies, my opinion about elected officials, historical events, neighbors, passerby. . .my captive audience, forced to ingest everything i deem worthwhile.
we cannot be stopped from looking with pity upon all the world's sorry inhabitants, they unblessed by our charms, unchallenged by our trials, unscarred and thus weak, gelatinous.
i look through their windshields for the faces of those coming at us, for a sign, for their understanding, fro their trust, and i find their trust and they go by. our car thrums loudly and iturn up the radio because i can.
or rather, it was not at all perfect, but was far less imperfect than anything else we'd seen
'a few years ago' has a comfortable distance. the blood is dry, the scabs hardened, peeled. early on was different. . .at that the haircutting woman stopped, went through the antique saloon0style doors to the back room and stayed there for a while. she came back red-eyed. he felt terrible. he is always feeling terrible, when the innocent, benign questions of unsuspecting strangers yield the bizare answer he must provide.
this is just a caricature, this, the skeleton of experience
i want to save everything and preserve all this but also want it all gone- can't decide what's more romantic, preservation or decay.
i mean, you can't always suffer. it's hard to suffer all the time. but i suffer enough. i suffer sometimes.
why do you want to share your suffering?
by sharing it i will dilute it.
i can tell from their clothes, their walks, their hair and hands, i know all the bad things that they've done. i know how they've failed and how they will fail and how miserable they are.
oh please. what would a brain do if not these sorts of exercise? i have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. i'd lose my mind.
i give you all of the best things i have, and while these things are things that i like, memories that i treasure, good or bad, like the pictures of my family on my walls i can show them to you without diminishing them. i can afford to give you everything.
these things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. what does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? he leaves it where he molts.
dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning french or collecting scarves. and it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. and subjective. so fuck it.
it was like that in a way, a heightened sense of terror born of doubt, a lack of predictability in his behavior
this is fiction now, it's fucking fiction.
so instead of lamenting the end of unmediated experience, i will celebrate it, revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its dozen or so echoes in art and media, the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha!
i'll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. the core is the core is the core. there is always the core, that can't be articulated.
the drunkenness, i guessed, would add to the whole endeavor a haze of mystery, not to mention a romantic fluidity that i could not otherwise count on. i should be desperate, raggedy, semi-coherent, stumbling from place to place. it seemed much more fitting than being calculating and sober, would strip things to their core, would eliminate a layer or two of self-conscious white noise, would allow me to do more asinine things.
i hang up, blow hot air into my hands. i'm a moron. someone will see me here, back in town for the first time since i left, using the phone outside the train station. no one uses this phone. then again, no one will be surprised. they wlil have expected something like this, from me - they know what happened, will assume that i've finally hit bottom, that i'm homeless and on crack. did i ever belong in this town?
they know i am not them. i am something else. i am deformed, am a hundred years old.
we would all be feeling vibrations from it all, or they were all inside us, too, moving elliptically, or through our blood and there would be music, ELO maybe, Xanadu maybe, did she really like ir or just tolerate it for our sake?
but we both knew it was over, and the great, oddly wonderful thing was that neither of us really cared anymore - oh we cared, yes, but we were ready.
finally, the strange comfort of knowing the end, its parameters and terms.
when you're all sleeping so many sleeping i am somewhere on some stupid tickety scaffolding and i'm trying to get your stupid fucking attention i've been trying to show you this, just been trying to show you this - what the fuck does it take to show you motherfuckers, what does it fucking take what do you want how much do you want because i am willing and i'll stand before you and i'll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and i've been so old for so long, for you, for you, i want it fast and right through me - oh do it, do it, you motherfuckers, do it do it you fuckers, finally, finally, finally.
