| October 15, 2000 | |
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| I used to be a computer programmer who tried to write poems. Now my face is corroded and I can't keep any secrets. My eyebrows permanently raised, lids fretted, the skin of my forehead transparent and textured, thin as thin silk. I still don't understand. I don't understand why humans dehumanize. I don't understand beauty, loss of beauty, then beauty found in the unlovely. I don't understand the burned girl, laughter, the dead man who kissed the earth, or the why we are here.
I still haven't been able to write about nothing. Tonight I saw that nothing came directly from war. And war came from dehumanizing, and dehumanizing came from silence. And then back around, a swift circle back to silence. The silences between the stars and the silence at the back of the choked throat. So I cried. What's astonishing to me is the permanence of iconoclasm. The sirenity of the new. It's a force within me as big as god. It can't be killed and it can't be trashed. It's always whole and it's always there no matter what I do. I'm no longer allowed bitterness, no longer allowed despair, no longer allowed doubt. I'm allowed to make words, I'm allowed to gesture, I'm allowed to follow, and I'm allowed to wonder how people do their laundry. The new astounds me every single fucking day, I can't turn away, I'm awkward in your grasp, my kiss missed your lips, I'm sorry for my slips, I have to serve you, grandeur. |