Just a thing to get a thing out of a thing and then maybe we can move on
The truth, the truth, the truth, we’re all so preoccupied with the truth. The word has no meaning anymore, if it ever did. The truth is I can be pretty fucking awfully self-serving. I take what I need and give only as much as I can afford, and with my resources, naturally that isn’t much.
I didn’t realise, I don’t realise often times until it’s too late. I know, I know, I know how trite that sounds, I can’t help it, it can’t be helped, I can’t ask for help, I don’t deserve help, but I need help. A specific type of help, if you’ll hear me out. Yes I did, I did, I did say that I believed that the truth was that the help, this help, this specific assistance wasn’t forthcoming. Mmm, I’m reaching for the slightly longer ones now, now, now that I’m nervous, I’m anxious, I’m scared - am I too revealing? am I not revealing enough? am I fun? am I zany? but in a ‘cool’ way? not too much? too girlie? too butch? too needy? too withdrawn? too self-loving? too self-hating?
Am I bitter? am I clear?
Clarity.
Clarity of thought, of word, escapes me. I see the patterns, I see groups of three, I think in parallels, I feel just there, just behind the hazy yellow mist there’s a real, three-dimensional, unequivocal, undeniably real… something. That you can touch. That you can see. That you can form your mouth around and express. But when I try, and I do try - it’s a glob of mess, of nothing, undefinable pulpy, gloopy, shit. And even I can’t abide that.
When I dare to cast my gaze in that direction for long enough to see, there’s only one thing I want: the one thing that will make it worse. Because what makes it worse, makes it better in the short term. And the advice-givers tell you to ‘live day by day’ and take things ‘one step at a time’, don’t they? Well I need it. To take the next step. I can’t step knowingly. My legs won’t cooperate and my hands are pins and my burden is heavier than all the world and if you don’t believe that, fuck you. It’s mine to carry until I decide otherwise. Until I can decide otherwise.
28 July 2008 at 9:40 pm
Groups of three add so much expression, i can almost hear it.
I believe it, and day by day is definitely sometimes the only way we can live.
29 July 2008 at 2:49 am
I really like your transition in this piece of DRIBBLE. For what it’s worth, I’d say fuck the advice-givers and go and take the shit for your own self-interest.
30 July 2008 at 8:57 am
K: Thanks for taking the time to say so. :)
Your Wandering Mind: Would you say the same if you knew ‘the shit’ I’ll be taking (haha) is vodka tonics or dope?
30 July 2008 at 6:12 pm
Have you read this piece out loud? If not then try it. The voice is wonderful. Content I’m not so sure about because I’m too taken with the voice to think about what she’s saying. I’ve been struggling with my current novel for a long time now but this third draft began with a voice, no one specific but a sort of amalgam of Joanna Lumley, Juliet Stevenson, Penelope Wilton … you get the idea … I so needed to hear not-me read the words. And I found myself doing the same with this piece, looking for a voice to go with the words.
There is a repetitiveness to the narrator at the beginning of this explosion of words: ‘The truth, the truth, the truth’, ‘I know, I know, I know’ and I kept thinking that this needs to be performed and not read.
Take the bit: ‘there’s a real, three-dimensional, unequivocal, undeniably real… something.’ and consider what’s happening during that ellipsis. She’s struggling for the right word. And I can imagine a director telling her to: “Hold it. Hold it. Hold it… now let it go.” I can see her looking upwards and straining for that word and then all the tension vanishes in an instant with a shrug of the shoulders and a “something”.
The last paragraph doesn’t quite have the same energy for me and I think it’s because there’s less repetition, less searching for the right word. I’m not sure. Either way, I think this has promise.
31 July 2008 at 8:35 pm
Jim, I have! I have! I read all my stuff out loud, actually. I’m glad you like this voice, because I think it’s the closest to my ‘true’ voice I’ve found so far. This was one of those pieces that just flows right out in about twenty minutes. For no reason other than it has to. Which is probably what gives it that conversational and slightly manic quality.
I think the last paragraph is just an accepting, a winding down - so it makes sense that the energy is different (not that i planned that out at the time).
Needless to say, I’m happy that all that ‘came through’. :)