The Question

I think I owe you an explanation. This is a good time for it, since we seem to be climbing up the dry, inviting arms of another island. And this is the crux of what needs explaining: how is it that I am drowning, and running across paved pavements, and on an island, and inside myself? This is a stupid question, but we'll come back to that. You see, even now my breath comes quicker, my throat is tight and my lungs just won't draw in the precious poison called air, just won't do their job of pumping life and memories and thoughts into my body. It's pathetic to say you've discovered you are broken, since you always were. Admitting that you're broken is not the embarrassing part, admitting that it's taken you so long, is.

If the world we inhabit is a garden then we're all birds of paradise, birds of our own desire, croaking and chirping "I'm broken". But once in a while a bird finds its voice and is silent. I met such a bird, a long time ago. She was the most beautiful bird I'd ever heard, even when she was speaking. But when she grew silent, that's when my heart started listening, that's when my tears started articulating the sheer depth of the wounds she'd left in me. And I drew towards the wounds. The puckered flesh around them spewed words, like the mucus from an infected fingernail, like the glistening, viscous excrement of a vile disease or boil. And in front of the ocean, under the witness of stars, I lanced my wounds, the hot red needle of my own self-loathing, self-love, self-hunger. And still, she was silent. And finally, there was nothing more to speak of. And that's when I grew curious, for the silence that I had seen in her was growing in me.

And I came to slowly understand that she had already spoken all that she needed to say, already uttered all she thought of this world and it wasn't much. And in the wake of her truthful speech, short and short-lived, like all truths are, there was nothing more she could do but be silent. Her eyes spoke of depths but she was silent. Her smile spoke of promises, but she was silent. Her embrace spoke of safety, but she was silence. And, slowly, I came to love that silence, came to gravitate towards the core I could feel pulsating in the middle of it, a quasar of emotions, a quasar of love and distance, a quasar of her. And I dove. Head first into the immense stream of bewildering emotions, head first into an ephemeral river in the middle of her silence. And it was divine. And it's never stopped wounding me since. But the wounds are not angry, they are not diseased or infected. I wear them with pride. Now, they stream silence, they evoke separation and an eerie chill that binds us together. An eerie chill that says this is us, you are them, there is nothing for you here. Only our silence is here and we offer it, her and I, and you can take it, or leave it, or freeze, or none but that's all we have for you. I pity Jesus.

How is this an explanation? Well, this is all created now. In the center of the silence there is no creation. And for some reason, I am flawed. I must create. I must create myself. This is the true manner in which I am broken. I cannot really be content with the silence. While she sits there, alone, at peace, in silence, I must walk and rage and wage and anger and heat and laughter and madness and beauty and all that which she has no need for. And I must write. I must articulate the silence, which is a stupid thing to do. I told you the question is stupid. And that is the question I'm asking, even though it's stupid and can never be answered: how is it that I am running and drowning and on an island and inside my self, all the while part of me is in the silence? And all of this, this island I have constructed, this ocean we have been swimming, the iceberg, the bridge, the books, the corners, the King, the cicada swarm, all that is to come and yes, even the Lictor, all of this is my answer.

Sorry. I tried. I think I'll go cry now.