unravel me

(copied and maybe edited a little from my journal,
a few minutes before the 21st of April
in my room in Misasagi, Yamashina, Kyoto City)

I don't know how to write anymore. I mean I can still write and I want to write, but I don't know how to put it down on paper. I mean literally put pen on paper and produce paragraphs. (See, I can't even tell you coherently what I want anymore--literally and figuratively.)

I guess I've lost my patience. I've lost it all over again---the patience to sort out thoughts, to look for and choose the right words, to construct sentences and know when to insert significant pauses, and yes, even the patience to skip a line and create a space between paragraphs. I've lost it all. (If you could only see how awful my handwriting is.)

Is this all really true, you wonder? How can somebody who claim not to know how to write, write three consecutive entries in her blog? You don't get it. Sure, I can type it all up in a keyboard, bang on {Enter} and clack up {Tab} and {Backspace} and choose letters from {Aa} to {Zz}, choose the #!.,@="&)* punctuations. I even have the patience for your old {ctrl-alt-delete} routine, should something go awry.

But I've lost my patience for that magical time it takes to form that secret, silent thought to the chosen, hushed, uttered word, and finally to that again-silent, unerasable, written testimony. (If you could see me sweating it out now, only to complete this routine.)

Where did all that go? Did I lose my muse, as Lyra did? Am I less lonely here? (Yeah, could've fooled me. I would jump and stop all this nonsense right now if the phone rang, but that's another story.)

Before this entry, and I guess even after it, my second journal lies blank except for lists of things to do, people's phone numbers back home, tattoo designs and other crap. Am I losing my memories to other people? The things I've written recently are reports, quizzes, emails, text messages and my shitty blog publications.

Am I losing my memories to other people? Are my moments lost to the confusion and vulnerability and virtuality of cyberspace? Will you even remember this entry, this blog, how you felt when you read it after you visit this site, or long after I stop writing here, or forget my password, or when all the ads pull out and this blog has to shut down? Will you? Will I?

I will perhaps one day, fill all these blank journal pages, even throw it away or burn it, but I believe that once written, words can never be taken back. You can admit something by saying it, but you can never, and I mean never deny something you have written. Your handwriting will stare back at you and force you to acknowledge it as your own. Even the slightest memories will rush up and squeeze your throat, reminding you when and what you were feeling when you wrote that piece. Pen and paper will be ready to answer a subpoena to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what you wrote, god help them.

It could be that all this shit is laughable and untrue and just plain bullshit by next week, two years from now, tomorrow, or even in the next minute, but you and I will know that the minute I finish all this (the minute a click on {Publish your Post}), that this is how I felt, how I was thinking that very moment I was sweating it out to write this. And perhaps I won't remember as clearly how I struggled, or how difficult this was, but I will never be able to deny this experience again. Ever.

There's this song by Jonny Lang that talks about this girl, writing on her journal, pouring out all her secret ambitions and deepest thoughts, when suddenly the piece of paper flies out the window. She feels bad about this ("A part of your heart/All alone in the night" he sings), but suddenly imagines what if, what if, somebody finds it and reads it and it makes him/her smile, or laugh, or cry or even just nod his/her head in agreement. And suddenly she doesn't mind it being lost at all, because she knows it's not, having written it and confirmed it, and knowing somebody will find it and read it and somehow confirm her, too.

(Right here, about right this time, you'll begin to think, Whew finally, she'll stop all this angst, all this unproductive anger. She's found that crutch, that part of the story, where you can breath easy and be ready to hear the moral. Well, fuck, you're in for a disappointment. Let me tell you now, in case you want to stop reading this, I am not finished, I will perhaps never be finished with angst.)

But needless to say, all of the above was a fucking song, and what are the chances that somebody who finds what I've written will really care about what I wrote, or will even read what I wrote, or even recognize the stuff between the lines (will they even know that there are stuff between the lines?). What are the chances somebody will even find that blown away piece of paper? You know that in real life it'll probably get stepped, trampled, spit on and end up wet and dirty and crumpled and unreadable in some corner, waiting for the rain or the wind to take it somewhere where it can die with dignity. If your piece of paper's lucky, this is what will probably happen. Or someone could find it and use it to pick up their dog's shit in the park.

I know that life doesn't offer guarantees. Hell, the six-year-old understands that right after you tell her there's no Santa. And I know that that's one of the more beautiful and brilliant things about it sometimes. But tonight it's fucking cold and I've got the cough and I can't finish one cigarette for the burning in my throat.

Yeah, life takes your money and sometimes screws you over. Like that doctor telling me I'm fine and don't need medicine.

I could use some sleep inducers tonight.