Confession

Latent, not relaxed. This is what I am. Insomniac, not awake. This is how I live. Full, not nourished. This is how I feel. But even if I put these words down on paper, in the very order by which they appear here, now before me, will I ever convince anyone? I appear relaxed; my eyes are open, thus I am awake; my skin is pink as if I am well-fed. Who is to believe me? And, on the other hand, why am I that inclined to make people, even a single individual, believe me? What is there for me to gain? Then again, what is there for me to lose? Could I try it any other way, I wonder. Like a child, constantly seeking attention—is this what I am? Should I pour scalding hot water on my hands, and then walk around in t-shirts, mid-winter being utterly irrelevant, to show off my scars? Should I only listen to sad songs out loud? Should I stop talking to people, keep my eyes low and my spirits the same? I won't pour scalding hot water on my hands, I'm too damn scared to hurt my precious self; I won't just listen to sad songs, I only know so many; I won't stop talking to people, because I never had anyone to talk to. A dead-end. This leaves me exactly where I started off: nowhere. In such a place where no matter what you might say, it's never the right thing; no matter which route you choose, it always ends up being the longest one; no matter how far in love you fall, you always fall short of love. Just life? Perhaps. Should I be okay with it? Perhaps. Then, what purpose does this, or as a matter of fact any, writing serve? A confession? To whom? One's self? Nonsense, we (I) already know the truth—whether I (we) choose to admit any part of it is a different story. Then what? I think, which means I confess with all sincerity, my writings have always been cryptic and ambiguous, primarily because of my pretentiousness. In fact, they are so cryptic that one can read them like an open book (sort of speak): the words are there, presented in all their essence, literally not metaphorically, bare and whole, exactly as they were meant to be used. But people stumble upon them, as if they were hiding from them in the dark; people mistake them for unsolved riddles or screens of smoke behind which lies another universe, that of untold truth and unforeseen revelations. None of these is true—take my word for it, though my word may not be worth much nowadays. I walk (write) as I breathe (love): eyes open, mouth full, alerts down. Regrets? None. Pain? Some things are best kept unsaid. It's just that I act (love) as I breathe (love), seamlessly and without thought processing. What is there to think about? And if no regrets are there to haunt me, no pain there to admit to, what is this confession doing here? Why is it being built word by word? It's the way the hands operate. A kind of sleepwalking of the hands, of an insomniac nonetheless, on the keyboard. And, of course, the ever unanswered question still stands, tall as my shadow under setting sun: what good (or bad) will ever come from sharing such a confession? Maybe, I'm now thinking, the purpose is solely to put the words down, in a specific order, to line them up, control and fondle them, to reposition, erase, substitute, misspell them; maybe the point is found in dealing with the words the way you're supposed to deal with life, with breath (love) long gone, or just found again, to let your sleepwalking guide you, yes you, you incompetent insomniac, through your own choices and their warmth and recrimination. This is it! This is why words are cryptic, you summon them so as to say something, anything, then they take you where you always meant to go, but kept forgetting where. Words are cryptic to the one who tries to use them—not to others. Forgive my talking to (for) myself. This passage was not meant for me; it still isn't meant for me. It will never be meant for me. Words in this passage (one without a start or an end) are meant for you who (might) read it, regardless whether you make all the way through, half-way down, or merely across the first few lines. Forgive my saying nothing—have I ever said much though? Not really and I can't see how this might change now. Please weigh me for what my words speak of me. May this be my confession: I am no more (or no less) than what I write, for what I write defines who I am in an irrevocable way. And, if I may, a final word of advice: there is no reading between the lines to be done—these words are nothing else but themselves.