the i-tank years

at one point, i went weeks without saying a word aloud. when i started again, i began slowly as a zoo-train whispering barely words from a page in a john fante book. wait until spring, bandini. for a couple days, while re-thickening myself to society and sound, i was unable to recognize my own voice by any means other than that i knew, with relative certainty, that i was the only creature of said and such vocal chords and patterns in the room. beyond that, there was nothing.

it was like a self imposed vacation to the so-callousing i-tanks of my earlier years, locked in strange cage of glass to be poked with sticks and laughed at in silence, throwing cheerios into a styrofoam cup the monsters of society gave me for the swamp-syrup they called coffee. but this was different in that i created it, built it. around myself. though not of my own accord and will. i think maybe it was obvious to me, that for those days in those moments, there was no voice or ears that longed to trade paces and moments with me. there was no one anywhere who wanted the sound of my voice in their ears. and maybe, in reactionary view, there was no one i wanted to hear. i was tired. tired of being everyone's conscience. tired of being everyone's hope-demon, sermon-guru from the plastic plains, and, truth be told, at that point, i coulnd't have put my heart in it anyway. i was too busy wanting her. god could wait, i mean, after all, he was eternal, right? she, on the other hand, though her myth and legend and beauty will be eternal (and is, within me), her physical form and ability to communicate in a way unforeign to me, is not.

even then, though, she was already falling away. turning to dust and scattering from my life like a soggy dream i wanted so dearly to never wake from. quagmire-soul she had in those days and i wanted her more than the sun.

alas, and now, retrospecitvely, for the better, i got the sun. i ended up with god.

but there were the silent weeks. the quiet weeks backed up gingerly to one end or the other of the silence, torture as zamyatin would only know. ivan denisyanvich, maybe. otherwise, there is no silence for the storm i was burying beneath me, no scorn-words deep enough fro the mirth of vying for emptyiness and darkness. i didn't want to die, to be clear, i just didn't want to live. from holy man to mongrel in a couple months time. so i wasted away, worse off than any junkie and i've been many junkies thus far, so this i can tell you with sincere aptitude and be of clean conscience in knowing i speak truth in such matters. it's dark, and clearly i am falling. i remember those days well. i don't know why they occur to me as i slip into a sleep i'm trying to fend off too early in the evening. i fear waking enough to blow the candle light from the sill. for once, at last, i am afraid of everything.

2003-07-10 | 6:01 p.m.
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