As a kid, did you ever dream of creating something
unwittingly complicated, like the theory of everything
or a box of matches to light the stake, or practical—
another Antikythera mechanism, for instance—
only to realise years later that no one expected you to
because apparently, nothing beats the nine-to-five
on the way to the golden age? And they may be right,
but you know what? At least you won’t be crying
over pyrite.
I’ve only ever talked to myself, even if the words were directed at you,
and you wouldn’t hear my voice anyway, as you aren’t here—you never were,
now that I’ve realised that in order for you to appear before me,
I must first dramatise you, assign you a genre, and only then deconstruct you,
finger by finger and toe by toe, until there is nothing left but a bare midriff
with a navel scar, the only evidence that we were once one.
I bought this fancy camera once, only to lose interest in photography.
Some other time, I spent hours rehearsing small talk and still chose solitude
like every other hermit among the city dwellers. And since I’m bookish,
I knew marginalia were my bread and butter, but one way or another
I had to face the question: Do I lose interest in everyday life?
Then again, like a faceless man in a bowler hat, every now and then I think
that I’ve actually caught a glimpse of something—I just don’t know
what exactly it is yet—but it always turns out to be nothing
but my imagination.
I can remember words I read only for a little while, so I keep the most treasured pages close.
This way, I can read them again whenever I so desire. But every now and then I ask myself,
Why have I learned how to read in the first place? And, most importantly, why have I learned
how to write? To manoeuvre more shrewdly through all the tedious little dramas of ours?
I know there were times when imagination was a threat. The visionary was nothing but a regular
at the asylum, or even better, burned at the stakes. I am not that stubborn; you can bet on it.
But ever since the winter of my birth passed, I have been looking forward to seeing another
one—the one perceived as a betrayal. Betrayal of what?
What if imagination is a decaying sense, only temporarily kept alive like a fading memory
of the letters I once wrote? For instance, the other day I was going through the laundry
and found in the inside pocket of my jacket an old coffee shop bill with a note on the back:
“Your lips have no eyes; my eyes have no lips—we are complementary entities.” I recall
that tingling feeling when we walked with cups, holding hands, unaware it was the last time
in a crowd where no one looked at us, and you liked it that way, regretting only that real life
has no soundtrack. Then, for a while, our hands practised irrelevant gestures to pass the time
between meals and sleeping hours. I know; I never asked why you decided to run into me.
You never asked why I left, either. Perhaps we were always just perfect strangers in disguise,
rehearsing another day of their drama on paper.
hidden pilcrow 