time's edge
PART ONE: i am halfway washed away
1.
time traumatizes me. obsessively i watch the clock.
in the mornings i get ready with an alarm that goes off every five minutes for i must keep myself paced. i must keep myself on edge. i must keep myself prepared. i must not lose myself. okay. sometimes if i have a few hours free before work i have alarms that ring every thirty minutes or so.
each hour is a value of its own. time is the true currency. like a singular dollar bill, just one “free” hour on its own is worthless, is essentially already wasted, due to its singularity. no, the only time of real value is the type that stretches out unnoticed, the type that can exist in such an abundance that one can be allowed to forget entirely of its existence.
my free time is only truly mine when my mind is my own. this is why work feels so difficult— i am not existing within my own mind— not only is my body a vessel for the work to get done but even more so is my mind. when i come home from work rarely do i have the time/space/comfort/solitude to exist peacefully within my own mind, despite having left work. when i finally have my time to myself i have forgotten how to exist within my own mind. i have forgotten how my mind feels. i am halfway washed away. this is where the sedation often comes in. i sedate myself out of discomfort / into my comfort. i sedate myself to block off the outside world. i sedate myself to lose my awareness of what i have lost, of what i now lack.
maybe if i could find a Time truly endless, the sedation could be unnecessary. is this endless time that is the true time i seek actually just a lack of time? i yearn for a lack of Time? Timelessness? what is the word for living without time? what is the word for a world without time? if i could find this world would i grow back into a whole being, again?
i think time can be real and it always will be, and it always should be, but sometimes the thing that is Change is what we call time. i am not asking for a world that is infinite. i am not asking for a world that does not change. things move forwards, things move backwards, things move in circles; what we call Time is actually the only thing that keeps us all constricted in place and yet if one were to imagine a world without our “time” they might initially picture a sort of anarchic nothingness. no, no.
2.
OCTAVIA BUTLER:
“ALL THAT YOU TOUCH YOU CHANGE.
ALL THAT YOU CHANGE CHANGES YOU.
THE ONLY LASTING TRUTH
IS CHANGE.
GOD
IS CHANGE.”
3.
i have an eye for beauty in the form of disruption. disruptions are the natural resisting the unnatural. disruptions are Change/God. reminding me that It is still there. even though the artificial layer atop everything thickens slightly with each day. even as i watch those around me greet the world that is just the Double of the world and then move on with their days.
Disruption. I’m Still Here. Disruption. I’m Still Here. Disruption=Interruption=Eruption=YESIAMALIVEANDIAMSTILLHERE.
my diary has become a record-book of the disruptions i bear witness to.
4.
i was wearing jeans
my eyes open and closed
i walked up and down, side to side
the city felt so wide
then this feeling really hit me
i guess it happens once in a while
that i want something huge to hit me
something out of time
and this thing is really pretty
i don’t know it, but it feels mine
i should not try to explain it
just know it doesn’t happen all the time
and while the world is spinning faster
i sometimes wonder how
this feeling that i’m after
is best kept alive
touch mе
touch me
touch me
touch me
~smerz, ‘street life’
5.
and i think it might not be a human’s touch that she sings of there but the touch of the world - the touch of the world - the greatest touch - the sweetest touch - the touch of life - the touch we have forgotten is there - the true touch we are looking for in the touches of others - the touch that (yes it does) it moves through the fingers of others - and that is okay but it is in other places as well - so many other places too - so let yourself be touched - i sound like a preacher - but you need to - you need to let yourself be touched
6.
THE EDGE OF TIME IS WHERE I BECOME AWAKE
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(this is where the journey begins)
(stay tuned for more)
