why do i always feel like i’m on the verge of something ? it doesn’t escape me. there is a precipice i’m constantly flirting with, never sure if it’s transgressive or hedonistic. there is not enough shame in me some days, even when i’m nearing capacity. i’m always breathing in a little deeper, a fraction over the point of comfortable, trying to squeeze it all in. shame is familiar in me, knows exactly where to bury itself; where to organise. sometimes, after an unreasonable depth of tenderness, a foreign liquid will collect on the bottoms of my eyelids & the betrayal of the anti-climax will leave me breathless. come on, i’m thinking, is this the best you can do ? no spontaneous combustion, no supernova ?
the thought of being written about makes me squirm, prickles of heat erupting all over my skin, sticking the hair straight up. i know what writing can do, how it so easily eviscerates. i’m tempted to brat, the thought of anyone trying to understand my work bringing out an ugly side of me; the rawest part, the throbbing part. if someone were to generously offer an interpretation of me or my writing, no matter if it was good, bad, rapturous, sneering: i’d feel the inclination to shrug myself of it; to say, no, you did not understand me, you did not understand me at all. a simple question mark is my wishful thinking.
how to be shameless ? be just as important as the universe ? i will fall into the open arms of any young god that says they cannot understand me. i refuse to participate in the callous writing practices of coolness, i’d rather first die of moreness, leave something interesting to bury. to desire self-earnesty is a particular type of compulsion: something propels you towards ruining yourself, so you do it over & over. if i had hands more agile i’d take a chunk of marble & do to it what an impassioned artist might, all desirous & coercive. instead i’m astonished daily by the self-soothing inferno that writing is for me. i should be more ashamed that another writer’s ultimate humiliation is my deepest pleasure: through sheer statistics i’m hoping someday to be accidentally brilliant.