Introspective, Irrespective
"Do not listen to a word I say. Just listen to what I can keep silent."
I keep going to write something really personal here, and I keep not being able to do it. Funny, isn't it? I can rant at length about politics and imaginary sporting conspiracies. I can tell you what I did today. I can show my poetry and my fictionalised feelings. But can I really say anything about myself that doesn't involve the reader having to read between the lines or make some kind of interpretation? I'm not sure I can. Nothing I'd want to read, anyway.
Still, it's bothering me. For the last three nights there's been a thought gnawing on my brain, and the longer I don't express it in some form, the more it swells, growing fat and pregnant with smaller ideas and thoughts, inspiring followers and enemies until I feel as though there's some kind of shouting match going on behind my eyes. And then, finally, I have to scream. If only to drown them out.
I've always thought of my writing as a scream. Sometimes it's a scream of grief, sometimes of frustration, sometimes of laughter. But it's always a scream. It's always a release of something I no longer wish to hold onto.
I wonder if I spend too much time hiding. I wonder if I haven't rationalised that part of myself to such an extent that I'm beginning to believe that I really am alone. That's not a pleasant thought, but I can't find much of an argument against it anymore. Days like today just feel abstract to me, like I'm not here at all. I measure my time in words and cigarettes and whiskey. I'm listless hieroglyphics floating in a room lit only by the fluorescence of this screen.
Turning twenty-five has filled my mind with speculation and adventure. But at the same time, I've found myself taken with an eerie nostalgia for the way I felt when I was younger. Ten years ago, I could care. Ten years ago, I could make a statement like "I really am alone" and not feel stupid and vain. Simpler emotions, simpler times. I didn't have to analyse then. What I felt was my truth. I could cry like no-one was looking.
It's good to be back in civilisation. Out in Gaddesden Row, I'd look out the window on a cloudy night and see an inky blackness that was frightening in its totality. No sounds out there, no people. Here, I keep my computer by the window and draw back the nets when I'm writing. I can look out and marvel at the way the clouds reflect the clusters of artificial light below, how we make gods of these simple, plastic things.
Perspective. Less than an hour ago I was cycling beneath those very same clouds, trying to ride some of this frustration out of my system. I was pushing hard, winding my body out as far as it would go, letting the muscles stretch and protest while my tar-sick lungs suddenly found themselves overdosing on oxygen. I love that kick, when everything's suddenly super-heated and I'm way out on the edge, challenging and then passing previous limits until stars dance before my eyes and I feel like I might just collapse; flesh and metal entangled on asphalt; the bleeding, sweating epiphany of adrenaline.
I never let it get to that stage, though. As with everything else, I know my absolute limits as well as I know the theoretical. And it was there, cresting a hill and relaxing as I let momentum take me over it, that I found the real epiphany. Silence on this normally busy road. My breathing, my heartbeat, the baritone hum of the wheels completing revolution after revolution. But silence, really. Darkness, really. Sudden and massive sadness found in the tarmac beneath me, solid and endless and given life only by those same lights I like to watch touch the clouds. Debris, the things we cast away without ever really thinking about it. It's everywhere, forgotten and neglected except for those precious moments where a glancing blow from the light exposes a twisted can, the silvery insides of a wrapper, glass scattered in random configurations like memories of the impact that left them there.
Desolate beauty in these things, yes. But also sadness. Too many metaphors. I feel overwhelmed and yet still no tears. I've forgotten how to cry. What are you if you can't cry?
And this, I think, is for Daisy. Because I'd never have written these words if I hadn't read hers.
I keep going to write something really personal here, and I keep not being able to do it. Funny, isn't it? I can rant at length about politics and imaginary sporting conspiracies. I can tell you what I did today. I can show my poetry and my fictionalised feelings. But can I really say anything about myself that doesn't involve the reader having to read between the lines or make some kind of interpretation? I'm not sure I can. Nothing I'd want to read, anyway.
Still, it's bothering me. For the last three nights there's been a thought gnawing on my brain, and the longer I don't express it in some form, the more it swells, growing fat and pregnant with smaller ideas and thoughts, inspiring followers and enemies until I feel as though there's some kind of shouting match going on behind my eyes. And then, finally, I have to scream. If only to drown them out.
I've always thought of my writing as a scream. Sometimes it's a scream of grief, sometimes of frustration, sometimes of laughter. But it's always a scream. It's always a release of something I no longer wish to hold onto.
I wonder if I spend too much time hiding. I wonder if I haven't rationalised that part of myself to such an extent that I'm beginning to believe that I really am alone. That's not a pleasant thought, but I can't find much of an argument against it anymore. Days like today just feel abstract to me, like I'm not here at all. I measure my time in words and cigarettes and whiskey. I'm listless hieroglyphics floating in a room lit only by the fluorescence of this screen.
Turning twenty-five has filled my mind with speculation and adventure. But at the same time, I've found myself taken with an eerie nostalgia for the way I felt when I was younger. Ten years ago, I could care. Ten years ago, I could make a statement like "I really am alone" and not feel stupid and vain. Simpler emotions, simpler times. I didn't have to analyse then. What I felt was my truth. I could cry like no-one was looking.
It's good to be back in civilisation. Out in Gaddesden Row, I'd look out the window on a cloudy night and see an inky blackness that was frightening in its totality. No sounds out there, no people. Here, I keep my computer by the window and draw back the nets when I'm writing. I can look out and marvel at the way the clouds reflect the clusters of artificial light below, how we make gods of these simple, plastic things.
Perspective. Less than an hour ago I was cycling beneath those very same clouds, trying to ride some of this frustration out of my system. I was pushing hard, winding my body out as far as it would go, letting the muscles stretch and protest while my tar-sick lungs suddenly found themselves overdosing on oxygen. I love that kick, when everything's suddenly super-heated and I'm way out on the edge, challenging and then passing previous limits until stars dance before my eyes and I feel like I might just collapse; flesh and metal entangled on asphalt; the bleeding, sweating epiphany of adrenaline.
I never let it get to that stage, though. As with everything else, I know my absolute limits as well as I know the theoretical. And it was there, cresting a hill and relaxing as I let momentum take me over it, that I found the real epiphany. Silence on this normally busy road. My breathing, my heartbeat, the baritone hum of the wheels completing revolution after revolution. But silence, really. Darkness, really. Sudden and massive sadness found in the tarmac beneath me, solid and endless and given life only by those same lights I like to watch touch the clouds. Debris, the things we cast away without ever really thinking about it. It's everywhere, forgotten and neglected except for those precious moments where a glancing blow from the light exposes a twisted can, the silvery insides of a wrapper, glass scattered in random configurations like memories of the impact that left them there.
Desolate beauty in these things, yes. But also sadness. Too many metaphors. I feel overwhelmed and yet still no tears. I've forgotten how to cry. What are you if you can't cry?
And this, I think, is for Daisy. Because I'd never have written these words if I hadn't read hers.
posted by Michael at 1:07 PM
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