There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.
James Joyce, quoted by Jacques Mercanton
Why should I say what I feel? Why must I make grief legible?
Who is the audience? Myself or you? Which you?
I am an almond, a slivered part of a greater whole. (I hope you see me).
Time ticks on anywhere, we find our places anytime.
I barely have an audience. (Why did you give the book back?)
I wish I could talk to someone about what I write here.
But no one who reads me talks to me; no one who talks to me reads me.
You didn't read me. Why lie? Which you am I talking to?
Why is this my ever-present problem: that I don't know which you you are?
You are, at least. I was afraid you wouldn't be. I was so scared.
I am still scared. I have nightmares. Why did worlds have to end
for me to be safe? I always feel illegible to others. I think of Joyce:
"Does nobody understand?" I hope in some world he knows he's seen,
At least by a little changeling who liked to memorize and echo him.
I've been seeing family for the past three weeks. It is what it is.
Why did you separate me from everyone? I felt so small. I feel so small.
It is difficult to write. I've been writing erotica because I can focus
on bodies and pleasure and sweat, rather than the apocalypse of grief.
Everyone says I'm doing well ("given what [I'm] going through").
I read a piece of mine to my therapist, they were moved by it.
I'm glad they were, but I wish I had anyone else who would talk to me.
About what it means when I push words together, what a thistlethicket is.
I thought when I started my doctorate I'd have more people to talk to.
I was wrong. Some of it is my fault, some of it is not. Though to be honest,
I am tired of pretending that I have to make myself legible to everyone.
Why can't anyone make the effort to read me instead? Why is it always
on me to be the one who gives up my particularity? Your parents never
liked me anyway. I feel the heavy sadness that one experiences
when you're on the precipice of something, when the new hasn't arrived
but you must tell the old goodbye. Soon the leaves will change.
If I lose my breath for a minute or two don’t speak, remember! Once it happened, so it may again.
James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake
Image: After the Rain, Autumn, Eragny by Camille Pissarro (1901)
Fish In the Afternoon 