23 July 2018

I want to write an honest sentence; rather, I want to write a not dishonest one. The double negative gives me an out, for that is what I hadn't not intended to say. ALL CAPS HELP MAKE THE POINT MORE PRECISE, like sharpening a pencil with an air hammer. Our country has jumped the shark: that reference comes from a sitcom; that is also relevant. The depressed people on the video used abstract language only. She was worried that it was getting worse. He was terrified of something about to happen. There was a forest where you couldn't hear a tree fall because there were no trees. No bark, no birds, nothing but the rustling of plastic refuse below the idea of a canopy. Leaves are the history of that idea. The house that contains them is smaller on the outside than within, a cinched belt that leaves small trails of dust down each corridor and before the toilet she sat on during the missile alert, contemplating her end. Where oh where have the nouns gone that got us here, the rich ones with lots of letters, lining up like squares of chocolate at a pot luck? When I curl my shoulders forward and put my chin to my chest, I am that girl again, the one who said “space waste” in lieu of how she felt. It's a kind of dementia, depression, displacing truth with metaphor, metaphor with blurts of sound. Air raid sirens didn't go off that day, a first clue. Still, we considered last words when only dust would become of us. Post-trauma, we're reborn as someone who just resembles us. As Sangha and I entered the hospital elevator, a tiny baby was wheeled out on a cart. A local man, tattooed, looked at me and said, “that was the scariest drive I ever took, 10 miles an hour.” After the phone call about where to put the car in case of nuclear attack, they hung up and screamed. Shoshona Felman said she sent the right letter to the wrong address. It had something to do with Lacan. Later, Sangha asked about our first drive. I sat in the car, while the others bought formula; a land mine survivor approached with a smile and a bowl. I didn't tell him that.

--23 July 2018