697
can't sleep, too frightened. i've just had four days off and tonight my brain decides to torment me, when i have to go to work tomorrow. it's been years since my insomniac days. i'm out of practice.
and now the psychosomatic itching.
*
Only someone who knows our cruelty,
who knows the fears we always lived with,
fear of inside and outside, smooth and rough,
soft and hard, wet and dry, touch and no touch,
only someone who understands the great palace we built
on the axis of time
out of our fear and cruelty and called history,
only those who have lived in the anger
of a great modern city,
who saw the traffic in the morning
and the police at night
can know how heartbreaking
our kindness was.
Let me put it this way.
One of us said, "I think
our life is not as good
as the mind warrants,"
another, "It is hard
to be alone and alive at the same time."
To understand these statements
you would have to be human.
[...]
Look closely around you,
study our instruments,
scan the night sky.
We were alien.
Nothing in the universe
resembles us.
Michael Goldman
from Report on Human Beings
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there using OpenID.
and now the psychosomatic itching.
*
Only someone who knows our cruelty,
who knows the fears we always lived with,
fear of inside and outside, smooth and rough,
soft and hard, wet and dry, touch and no touch,
only someone who understands the great palace we built
on the axis of time
out of our fear and cruelty and called history,
only those who have lived in the anger
of a great modern city,
who saw the traffic in the morning
and the police at night
can know how heartbreaking
our kindness was.
Let me put it this way.
One of us said, "I think
our life is not as good
as the mind warrants,"
another, "It is hard
to be alone and alive at the same time."
To understand these statements
you would have to be human.
[...]
Look closely around you,
study our instruments,
scan the night sky.
We were alien.
Nothing in the universe
resembles us.
Michael Goldman
from Report on Human Beings
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there using OpenID.