nothing is any less than it was

yesterday or the day before. In short,

there's no reason or every reason

why I'm choosing to think of this now.

I'm going to think of what it means

to be an animal crossing a highway,

to be a human without a useful prayer

setting off on one of those journeys

we humans take. I don't expect anything

to change. I just want to be filled up

a little more with what exists,

tipped toward the laughter which understands

I'm nothing and all there is.

-- stephen dunn, "choosing to think of it"

i think my sister is happy. she runs a video store, hangs out with friends, drinks beer, makes general statements about life. no angst, at least nothing that she mentions. funny -- she remembers far more than i do about life at home, but it seems to affect her less. they could be anecdotes from a book she read. not for her this ritual self-sacrifice, this clawing at the skin and tearing out whatever's underneath. i wonder what she'd say if i asked her what it all means.

she's decided i'm weird. i think that it all means that every time i inhaled, i remembered to exhale. no guarantee against future forgetfulness implied, just a succession of nows that vary in interestingness. moving through events like letters on a page and only in retrospect, surprise, they make patterns that have meaning. seeming chaos, but words form inside the mess; not always the words i think i want to choose, but always words i can assign a context.

"i'm nothing and all there is." yes. no-thing, no definite pattern that can be nailed down, defined, described, predicted. vanishing- point existence, but when the proper scale's applied, infinite size. i cling to my non-ness, take comfort in the significance i give my inconsequentiality. no one cares as much about my life as i do. if i'm very small and quiet, maybe they won't notice my presence until it's too late for anyone to prevent it.

i used to believe that people nibbled at my edges like mice, that each hurt took a little more of my substance until finally there'd just be a sine-shaped hole in the universe until, stripped to bare bones, i'd hit the unbearable hurt and flatten against it before dying, very beautifully and in slow-motion.

now i know it works in reverse: pain in my life weighs upon me, each event adding to my bulk so that i become denser, richer over time. now i know when i meet the unbearable hurt, i will absorb it into me and the combined mass will drag me under, through the floor and the dirt underneath and the rocks under the dirt, down to the core of the earth, where flames will consume my flesh.

--
sine | deb
just another upbeat day here.

next post