July 1, 1937

july 1, 1937

maybe there is no room for me here. maybe i am larger than i have assumed. maybe there is nowhere to house what my living entails, nothing to support what my living requires.

then again, maybe i am too small, too insignificant. maybe i have been dropped into this life and somewhere below is my proper place but i am too insubstantial to land.

maybe i am an angel who has been sentenced to heaven.

i am not where i should be and i have never been where i should have been. and with such a foundation on which to build i doubt i will ever be where i should be. it wouldn’t bother me if this was the price of existing, if this was the surcharge that everyone had to pay in order to have a life. but i seems i am alone in this predicament; others appear exempt from the conditions, from the limitations imposed upon my living.

this is not a situation i have imagined. this is not some fantasy that i force to perform on a barren stage, before row upon row of vacant days, nights…

this is real. i am not where i should be and i feel it, live it; i have always felt it, lived it, and have never felt or lived anything else.

i know it when i see someone talking on the telephone and think that the world was a better place while the phone was ringing. i know it when i feel, when i hear, the door in every thing, in every thought, in every emotion, closing forever before i can sneak through. i know it when crows, the janitors of existence, find my presence excessive. i know it when wasps, the terrorists of existence, find their cause in my undoing. i know it when dogs, the conscripts of existence, use me for target practice. i know it when a cat, a tireless saint of existence, recognizes my penance and finds a way to slink into my predicament to console me. i know it when any person i have ever shared a moment with leaves and there is no sound of their departure, no footprints in the snow, no impression left on a chair, a bed, no warmth on my hands, lips. i know it when i am sought by those who are sending me away, when i am admired by those who can only build pyres, when i am a burden to those who have been granted too much life, when i am caressed by those who are destroying themselves, when i am spoken to only by those who have already died, when i can love only the idea of someone who has never existed.

i know it when it rains and i do not get wet.

i feel it when a leaf falls through me, when a leaf tumbles over my heart as though it were a pebble on a street that is starting to dress for winter.

i know it. i feel it.

and it is endless.

hollow • banishment • spur