I’m not sure I can describe everything I felt as I skimmed through it. I was taken aback to encounter the palpable despair that I carried with me everywhere in the spring of 02. It was disconcerting to read. I was a complete mess and yet trying to hold myself together enough to do some very difficult work. When I think of what followed a few short months later it seems now, having read the journal for the first time in a long time, to have an inevitability to it. Which is in no way an excuse for the things I did then, or the things I failed to do, but simply an acknowledgement on my part that there was no great mystery to any of it. It adds up in a way that seems almost banal.
I was also forced to admit that much of the detail had been lost to my memory. I had boiled much of it down to a handful of stories, and the stories had taken the place of the actual memories. I am glad I found the journal. So what’s the point? I’m not sure, but a few thoughts come to mind. A number of the readers of Tg (tricky pals!?) feature in said journal to one degree or another, and so I thought of you. Perhaps I’ll share some of it. Mostly, I came to realize that the writing I had done, however incoherent, was valuable to me now. And so I thought of what I’d been doing in this space, or not doing in this space as of late, and decided that it was worth my effort. So I plan on revisiting Tg, but without any aspirations. Which means, I think, that it will be much more self-indulgent than it has been in its previous two-plus years. (“Is that possible?” I hear you chuckling…) It’s for me, and for my friends if they care to indulge me. And the rest be damned.
And on that note, here’s the poem I went hunting for. I wrote most of it, if I recall correctly (and I may not!), in my very first Religious Studies class. It was a Hebrew Bible class taught by a gentleman who was a graduate of Emory’s GDR and a Presbyterian minister. It was a great class and helped to push me into the study of religion. The poem was probably intended to be lyrics for a song, a song that never materialized. Needless to say, I am not a poet, nor a lyricist. It’s rough, but even now I do like the pictures it creates. It is untitled:
transparent canvas made of skin
my flesh shimmers and it shines
stained the color of memories
I've long since lost to time
I've got memories of blood
wetness I can't prove
my joints are full of marbles
and it's very hard to move
my bones are covered with faded print
my insides are old toys
rusty tin reminders
of long forgotten joys
a dervish without god
spinning into walls
my skull is filled with brightly colored
bouncing rubber balls
