25 march

the world is different than when i left it: doors flung open to a secret backyard of raw untendable pain, the black-shadowed Back of humanity. i have never seen nor felt nor tasted this bitter Side of living. and it is me, but it is not only me, for all they sing is true-- always, all they sing is true!-- so many have been as bewildered as i am to have those doors flung open and clear painful Life roar in upon them. oh, i am disenchanted with the human race.

the Searing laps in stages, ripping and receding like a terrible tide. Yesterday a large cavern had been crudely and uncleanly detonated from my lungs. i could not breathe. sometimes i felt so giddy with hysteria that i could torpedo into mad laughter or tears. By last night, i was pretty much every second still thinking about you, but the heavy splintering starts to evaporate. Today-- today love starts to seep through the chinks; i do not think always & only of you and That that is; the sky darkens and i lighten. i am elastic; i shall always heal.

today i can breathe. today the Smell of you in concrete and department stores and clothing does not make me crumple. today i can look at you, and your eyes, and the Blue, for a few seconds and i do not suffocate.we are strangers now. only, only, only strangers; as, child, for all that time and all those Words which were always & only Words, i could not have known you and you could not have known me. they were two different people, the one you were enchanted by and the one you came to See, not because one faded into dust, but because you would not let her grow. She does not flail herself for all to see. perhaps soon she must. for it is true-- what impetus Is that is quite like being told that one is inadequate? i do not know that one exists.

the world seems clearer now-- as though a thin film of innocence has dried out and stripped away. je suis et toujours je deviens; i am and i become. there is nothing quite like pain to remind one that one is alive. and, perhaps, to remind one to live.