There’s nothing I remember, so I shall invent a life.
It all starts with a dichotomy. Speech, lack of speech.
Logos, preceded by the lack thereof.
A heartbeat, maybe, echoing to form a vowel.
And then a sigh, with inexplicably twisted tongue.
“I”…
I…
I’ll tell you. Raising a finger from my desk.
I’ll tell you how it began. I was in the dark, and decided I had had enough of it.
I flipped on a lamp at my side and began to write.
There weren’t any words yet, but there were symbols for sounds, and that was close enough for now.
I pressed enter, and the message flew to a compatriot.
Or an enemy. This flush dichotomy of forms abounds!
I hold my breath and wait.
Waiting, for a response.
Waiting, to imagine words I’ll never hear.
And the light hums.
I…
What is it, inside that filament
which speaks?
What is every minute morsel of matter telling me about my beginning?
I’m not sure I want to read it, when my phone shakes.
But that’s what that behavior dictates.
A laugh, a cold analysis, a response.
This could go on indefinitely.
I don’t even know where you are in the world.
I’ll never see you.
I think of a more advanced dichotomy, I read about.
It was attributed to Freud.
A baby masters the objective universe through two utterances
in a ball game.
Fort… gone.
Da… there.
For now, these words are silent, but if I were in a crib
You would be the breast I long to devour,
The meaning I would choose to fill my mouth with
Muffled exclamations:
DADADADADADADA!
And I cry. But I don’t know what this all means to you.
Because I haven’t told you with electronic signs.
I’m not sure the word “to cry” carries any meaning.
It just stands in for fear.
Fear of being alone in the world, with the dark,
And no logos.
But I could go on for days reading walls of text on webpages developed by people
who have long since died.
I can summon the likeness of every celebrity onto a screen
rubbing my ***** while I look at them.
I can hear the music—
I CAN HEAR THE MUSIC—
Of all the world, vibrating. Rhythms contracting, like vulvas after birth.
And the silky, black discharge is this emotion in my brain after I think of you.
I created you with my words.
I illuminated my world with the thought of you.
And now I have nothing to say to the creature I created.
I am in horror before you.
Fort, fort, fort, away!
You have left me, without ever being present.
You were here, you were gone, I had no control.
And when I weep, the fear drowns the sun’s luminescence
The clouds hide the sky
The air sculpts my lungs
With emptiness
after words have come out.
MMXII
http://www.ncspp.org/fortda/origin.html