(no subject)
I think this is maybe how my book might begin.
There is so much. To say I don't know where to begin is to say there even is a beginning, that all of this was linear, moved neatly from point A to point B. But it was circular, it was fluid, it was bright as a bare light bulb and damaged you the same way, it was a lucid dream we all lost control of in our own way. It was alive and its breathing was the white noise of our nights.
But it exists now only in memories, and memories are slippery, elusive creatures, they can manipulate you, oftentimes, I've learned, better than most people think you can manipulate them. I've known a lot of people who've tried, tried to keep hold of memories, turn them on and off as easily as a light switch, and there are many who have succeeded. It is an empty victory, though, a bitter irony. For to color memories, to smooth them out like clay, to empty them and prop up the skins, to never mention them again, is to reduce oneself to a half-life, a life of not living.
My friend Seth explained it to me once, about how memories are what define reality, that without a concept of the past, the future ceases to be conceivable. To do so would be to infinitely live out a single moment, for each moment is reduced to such if it is to have no context, if it cannot be compared with anything else.
Until this place became one in and upon itself, we thrived off memories, we lived for them, we revealed them slowly to one another like fruit, some of them deflated and hardened with monotone, dusty, dried out: the place, the time, what was said. There was no taste, except for certain particles you couldn't get out of your teeth, like ashes. Some of them were still sore, so ripe that to touch alone was to damage. Some were raw enough that it was hard to look at them, difficult to open, their centers stained. But some were sweet, some we bit into and let the juice run down our faces.
Sometimes, we woke at night with the heaviness of our very skin making us so tender that we could barely breathe because of them. We cherished them, we coveted them, and they made us, in many ways, complete. We steadily, with purpose, destroyed them. The whole year, we took no pictures.
This is what I remember.
There is so much. To say I don't know where to begin is to say there even is a beginning, that all of this was linear, moved neatly from point A to point B. But it was circular, it was fluid, it was bright as a bare light bulb and damaged you the same way, it was a lucid dream we all lost control of in our own way. It was alive and its breathing was the white noise of our nights.
But it exists now only in memories, and memories are slippery, elusive creatures, they can manipulate you, oftentimes, I've learned, better than most people think you can manipulate them. I've known a lot of people who've tried, tried to keep hold of memories, turn them on and off as easily as a light switch, and there are many who have succeeded. It is an empty victory, though, a bitter irony. For to color memories, to smooth them out like clay, to empty them and prop up the skins, to never mention them again, is to reduce oneself to a half-life, a life of not living.
My friend Seth explained it to me once, about how memories are what define reality, that without a concept of the past, the future ceases to be conceivable. To do so would be to infinitely live out a single moment, for each moment is reduced to such if it is to have no context, if it cannot be compared with anything else.
Until this place became one in and upon itself, we thrived off memories, we lived for them, we revealed them slowly to one another like fruit, some of them deflated and hardened with monotone, dusty, dried out: the place, the time, what was said. There was no taste, except for certain particles you couldn't get out of your teeth, like ashes. Some of them were still sore, so ripe that to touch alone was to damage. Some were raw enough that it was hard to look at them, difficult to open, their centers stained. But some were sweet, some we bit into and let the juice run down our faces.
Sometimes, we woke at night with the heaviness of our very skin making us so tender that we could barely breathe because of them. We cherished them, we coveted them, and they made us, in many ways, complete. We steadily, with purpose, destroyed them. The whole year, we took no pictures.
This is what I remember.