schadenfreude
06-10-2008, 10:07 AM
Detach, they said to me, detachment
Is the key- the only way you can hurt,
and feel, and live and still survive.
For you see, you can die a million times
in living: little deaths, cold deaths, pinpricks of ice.
So we practiced meditation on Wednesdays,
ten minutes on the floor breathing dust,
in and out- in with the beating of our hearts
and out again, all while the air-conditioner rumbled,
and silhouettes of sunlight flickered on the blinds.
I discovered that Life was nothing more
than a thousand-and-forty-two glossy pages,
now into its eighth edition. Wedged between
molecular biology and organic chemistry,
it slowly withered on my bookshelf.
And in the meantime, I learned to forget-
I forgot the date, and sometimes the year,
I forgot words so I no longer lived them
And I did not remember all the little deaths
so they could not touch me and I survived.
Books- they crumbled on my doorstep,
all the letters curled like tiny spiders dying.
The summer air was sterilized by iodine,
I glimpsed spring through tinted sunglasses
and could not care about a single thing.
But what if they had said: attach, attach;
grasp the slivers; the broken shreds,
cherish last moments and mourn the dead,
Die; die steadily and it would not matter
if you do not survive.
Is the key- the only way you can hurt,
and feel, and live and still survive.
For you see, you can die a million times
in living: little deaths, cold deaths, pinpricks of ice.
So we practiced meditation on Wednesdays,
ten minutes on the floor breathing dust,
in and out- in with the beating of our hearts
and out again, all while the air-conditioner rumbled,
and silhouettes of sunlight flickered on the blinds.
I discovered that Life was nothing more
than a thousand-and-forty-two glossy pages,
now into its eighth edition. Wedged between
molecular biology and organic chemistry,
it slowly withered on my bookshelf.
And in the meantime, I learned to forget-
I forgot the date, and sometimes the year,
I forgot words so I no longer lived them
And I did not remember all the little deaths
so they could not touch me and I survived.
Books- they crumbled on my doorstep,
all the letters curled like tiny spiders dying.
The summer air was sterilized by iodine,
I glimpsed spring through tinted sunglasses
and could not care about a single thing.
But what if they had said: attach, attach;
grasp the slivers; the broken shreds,
cherish last moments and mourn the dead,
Die; die steadily and it would not matter
if you do not survive.