Not-Writing

*****

The most frightening thing is that I have nothing to say. Not even nothing 'left', whatever that means, but that really I have always said 'nothing', I think, and I'd welcome someone leaving something but they won't, will they? No, not likely, no. I haven't written anything here for a long time because it would be too hard, too much work and I don't feel that pang anymore- this is not my voice saying this, not really, here I am, not writing again, not me, not here, clipped by a dash. Something could be dredged up, no? One of those awful bits of pseudo-French theory from a winter or two ago or a brittle little Beckett impression, shivering, dumb, soaked in- no, fuck it. And what happened to the music? That was always the reason for writing to me, in this endlessly friendly, forgiving white space: I, with careful girlish hands, lovesick and stoned, carry records through the night, without the ordinary clumsiness, stuttering or- no, fuck it. That was never the reason for writing. It was only to show off and say very inconsequential things in a very grand way, in this voice acquired by eavesdropping, thieving, assiduously raking over books by dark, haunting the grounds of Beckett's estate, standing at the bottom of Burroughs' stairwell, making sure he's nodded out before I stumble out towards- and put an ellipsis in to show you can't keep this up, break the text apart like... no!- Alice, did the telephone go? No, not tonight. See, I can't keep this up, juggling, dancing, shaking, an agony which is- ended up a dash. So what? A shower of stars.

Charlie, you did all this before, you know? All this self-conscious stopping and starting, shaking and waking, it's not new, not even for you.

*****

Why did I stop writing here when it provided me with an 'outlet', if we want to use the embarrassing term which is not clinical, not even referential, just part of a larger outlet itself, the 'waste product' of a long, long pipe. An outlet this is not, never was, no. I never had anything to say which might be considered, in the confines of this ugly, supposedly open, non-clinical term, part of an 'outlet', my blood letting, my letter writing, my not writing, never an outlet, not, all the things I wanted to let out would not come, I never hit the vein, my exhausted words, my exhausted veins- I said that once- let's forget, put it out. Writing was never an outlet. An agony which is closed, stitch by stitch, by someone else, sealed up inside you, howling, waiting to be murdered, its claws against the interior of your stomach, torn out, soaked in you, yes, and then suffocated and devoured, still shaking, my poor wolf, met by a kiss, buried by an ellipsis... In the margins of everything all the time, someone was writing, I never knew what. Another essay about doubt.

****

I am also trying to stop this whole horrible heap of words from slipping into the dark and I know that even as I hate it, I am still clinging to it, holding the poor monster closer to me than anything else, as it claws (again), bites (afresh), howls (a loud, piteous howl) and placing these parentheses around it, carelessly all over everywhere, yes, like hives full of wasps (or something better: little hutches, houses, tiny moons which keep it howling, turn the tide against it, make it sick and miserable, insane (that's what parentheses are, I allude elusively, so clever: moons, 'lunulae'- crescent-shaped objects or marks (O.E.D.) The hive bursts, the moon goes down, and stung and sunburnt, the monster escapes as usual and I call out, call out, nothing but echo, echo, and marks I don't recognise, not for a second, on the surface of the page like a bruise, coming towards me like (who cares?) No voice in my head to even read them back as if I've had a brain injury, demented, mute, uncertain of where or who I am? 'Everything we write: remains'. Ending everything with a question mark but knowing it's all unfinished in the end anyway, isn't it?

*****

I'd like to slow down, stop saying 'I' so much, in my monomaniacal intensity but dragging, listen, please, 'I' around all the time, an idiot at my ankle, is so tiring, like conversation with a donkey once, so scared by moonlight, pleading with the slow-witted donkey in this barn, idiot talking to ass under the stars, Why are we so tired? Embrace me? My arms around the donkey's neck. 'I'm so tired of sighing, Lord, let it be night'. Take me out to the lake, let me hold onto you, please, with my hands that can't do anything and my ribcage which won't disappear, my eyes that can't look, all broken, and let me be held, please, until it's all gone, all dark, for the first time I am not joking, all mouth, drown, disappear. No, I am still kicking through the waves, stuck in the womb and I am still kicking and I'd like to slow down. Dragging as if ashore, idiot and donkey there, slipping into the dark, slightly feverish, you remember? Ashore, falling all over the place, hold me up, rock me back and forth, I hope no one ever reads this. Later the idiot points towards the night and the donkey names the stars, one by one. You mutter, I'm quiet. This sudden feeling of falling in love is frightening.

* * *

So I had broken out of anti-writing even if I wasn't writing. I'm so sick of reading this writing and writing this writing which is entirely concerned with the impossibility of writing, but soon it becomes the only way to make a mark. I don't think I could ever conjure up a story and I wouldn't be able to sustain it if I did, impossibly, and I'd just have to litter stars about the page to prove the whole thing was full of mistakes, missing bits, exploding as it was written. Writing against itself, sentence by sentence gradually, then vanishing entirely, right at the end in that long white gasp. All the good anti-writing has been done by Derrida, or Blanchot, or Beckett, or- almost all writing is anti-writing in a way, I stutter, I fumble. But I'm explicitly against or for the moment abandoning writing which is 'about myself' in this strict and tedious way because I'd like to be quiet for a while, knowing I've been quiet for a long time. I'm not being clear so I will try again but the whole thing has been so trying, I feel I have tried so hard for nothing, not even ink, but a complete work of not-writing which is still just electronic, imaginary and ridiculous. Trying again, much of the work here is- too much of it feels like a game, insincere or metafictional. And there is that very trying tone of detachment which I do not like, as if I were behind a pane of glass or else a masochistic clown. And I shudder at my pretence, now, when all the intensity is gone, the fire going out, making a monster out of my measly doubt, knowing nothing. Ending here, except there will be more, always the threat of more, coming to light now.

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