What impending death of oneself or another may construct:
i
One assumes in the absence of danger, disease, the extremities of life, that one's project may continue indefinitely; thus writing tends in this fashion towards a normative foreclosure, drawn by the exigencies and es- thetics of apparent internal necessity. Impending collapse produces an/ other approach: that a project is only a process which may, like a diary for example, be cut off arbitrarily at any point. Writing in these con- ditions is a writing through urgency and emergency; it is writing that attempts, in every phrase or sentence or paragraph, a recuperation and resonance - as if the phrase or sentence or paragraph will be the last.
In this fashion, after time/ after time, it becomes apparent that there is, of course, no last, not even with the excision or exclusion of life -- that one's project is always already open-ended and on the verge of failure. This recognition re-enters the project, restructures it from within, so that the manifesto, for example, transforms into meaningless phrases, self-doubts and critiques -- and all those other states that some say characterize wisdom.
Of wisdom I know nothing, and of truth, less. I do know that impending death, of oneself, or of someone so close that one is rubbed raw through it, has the ability to transform text into fragile self-reflective flow; object into discourse, a never-ending conversation full of glances, ex- postulation and pauses; and foundations into an uneasy grasp of such, the world slipping through one's fingers, the sky always already threat- ening, close to disappearance beneath an angry, raging, dying, sun. ii When the thing becomes a catheter When being becomes a sponge When beings become intravenous When nothingness becomes a scan When the void becomes radiation When the I becomes chemotherapy When entities become medication When objects become neurasthenias When selves become schizophrenias When death becomes thing, being, beings When death becomes nothingness, void, I When death becoes entities, objects, selves When death becomes thing, being, beings, nothingness, void, I, entities, objects, selves.
ii
When the thing becomes a catheter
When being becomes a sponge
When beings become intravenous
When nothingness becomes a scan
When the void becomes radiation
When the I becomes chemotherapy
When entities become medication
When objects become neurasthenias
When selves become schizophrenias
When death becomes thing, being, beings
When death becomes nothingness, void, I
When death becoes entities, objects, selves
When death becomes thing, being, beings, nothingness, void, I, entities,
objects, selves
=====
Metastasis
Tha faallng th$t flash h$s laft ma, th$t bpnas $ra hald by phpnamas np lpngar sppkan, th$t tha Symbpl by tha Ha$rth h$s ch$rrad:If I can't write, I won't be able to wait for you, O Existence. I am afraid of opposites, each and everywhere.:W$ltlng: I $m $fr$ld pf lpslng my $blllty tp wrlta. I $m $fr$ld pf npn-axlstanca.:dissolved forever: W$ltlng: I $m $fr$ld pf lpslng my $blllty tp wrlta. I $m $fr$ld pf npn-axlstanca. transforms Your Tha faallng th$t flash h$s laft ma, th$t bpnas $ra hald by phpnamas np lp- ngar sppkan, th$t tha Symbpl by tha Ha$rth h$s ch$rrad on Burning Creek... Ah, Living with Levels and Blues!thraa hhndrad calls ln tha bpy tast tast: two hundred twenty bonesin the girl test test test:pna hhndrad twanty bpnas ln tha bpy tast tast:eight hundred cells in the girl test test test: Devour me eight hundred cells in the girl test test test Brought Forth through thraa hhndrad calls ln tha bpy tast tast!
=====
the walk before the last walk
the second meal before the last meal
the third laugh before the last laugh
the night before the last night
the second day before the last day
the third laugh before the last laugh
the walk after the last walk
the second meal after the last meal
the third laugh after the last laugh
the night after the last night
the second day after the last day
the third laugh after the last laugh
the shadow of a man near a three o'clock store
the sound of a child running near her school