Once I pressed onwards in darkness
without even myself for company and I wrote to drive pitons into a sheer cliff. I tried to thread myself through them because
I was afraid to fall. I wrote to crack a
whip over myself because I didn’t know why I was climbing. I wrote myself a yarn that I stretched like
Theseus as I struggled through an inner labyrinth. I wrote whenever I could see. I wrote to erode the Sisyphean pit.
Now I write to rappel into the
depths because that is where I found myself waiting. I write to shed light on my subterranean
discoveries. Then I write to dispel the
vertiginous ascent as I carry them upwards.
I write to press onwards─to create myself. I write to press inwards and center myself. I
write to spin my impressions on the wheel, to feel them running through my
fingers as my hand guides them with a will of its own. I write to steal from nature, like
Prometheus, and give fire to my creations.
I write to set my words in a kiln and see if they crack.
I write because I don’t trust my
reason. I write because I am lost
without it. I write because I know how
easy it is to lose oneself, so I write to dance with myself until I am
exhausted. I write as an act of
resistance against the succession of moments. I write to assert my will, then I
write to give into it, and, finally, to overcome it.
I write as in a log, while I hunt
for inspiration. I tell myself to wait,
to hold for the right moment, letting my thoughts run ahead when they catch a
scent. I hold for the flush, my fingers
wrapped around the pen lightly like a trigger, and I follow my impressions
until just before they crest. That’s
when I pounce.
I write because I cannot believe in
ideals. I am looking for some aspect of
truth. I write to hear from the silent
god within. I try to trace the outlines
on the page and feel him looking at me.
Sometimes I feel he approves and other times I can sense his contempt. I always listen.
Every evening, I read in bed and so
often I am seized by the words of another.
I reach into them and feel myself expanded. As the night goes on, I forget that a pen
lies unsheathed besides me. When I give into sleep, my body presses against it,
writing my tossing and turning into the sheets.
In the morning, I am confronted by my chaotic markings but I continue to
wrap myself in my nocturnal writings because I know it will happen again.
