The mirror.

I don't have to deal with such violent turns anymore. I can sit quite comfortably the knifes inside are too blunt to penetrate, and besides my body has developed a unique enzyme that chews up metal. So now the knives are gone. And that is why I sit comfortably. You know what they say don't you? (Who 'they is I am unsure, I lost the source, but it has been collectively agreed upon they said it...) About laughter? Well it's the same as crying; triggered by shock; produces the same bodily effect, adrenaline, and a self sedative against pain. We cry to numb pain, to prepare to fight, we laugh for the same reason. The only difference is one recognises a real threat, the other recognises something that would be a threat if it wasn't so stupid. Shock. You can laugh at anything, I laugh at the mirrored edge of knives; the parallels held in that image with myself. But I knew it wasn't really me, too scarred, too skinny, too serious - she did not laugh back. 

A series of beginnings and endings

It has been a long time. That's because I dropped off the face of the Earth. Swimming around in the big black, disconnected; the ground not able to touch nor feel. Just weightlessness and the occasional heavy pull of gravity from a rock passing by. I had nothing firm to stand on, or lean against, push against, just a brief magnetic pull; like floating on your back in the sea as the waves occasionally stir your body. 

The main and most important thing, the whole point of this story, as is contrary to my usual opinion, it's not about the journey: it's about the ending.

That was written in the summer of 2013. Since heavily edited perhaps once a year since as I contemplated using this medium once again. The process of editing seeming much simpler than drawing new words from inside. I must have begun taking medication two months prior. It felt like an ending, but what is the ending if not another start? 

An ending is a time to take a deep breath and put everything behind you; a time to say that's done with now and I'm not wasting any more energy on it. 

What comes next? 

Honestly? 

Just more.

Nothing truly ends. Everything is a continuation. That's just how time works. Nothing and no one waiting for you to snap out of it. They've all moved on and you're waiting to be transported back to the way things were. And while you're taking those deep breaths, readying yourself for 'the way things were', everyone else continued, many not even realising you had a 'blip', or if they do, not comprehending just how substantial it might have been. Just a thing to say "oh" to. To mention in passing. Because everything is in passing; you're in a pit stop as everyone you know continues to continue. While you're thinking you're at the end they're in the middle of, or not even acknowledging their own endpoints, just the next thing. 

Nothing ends or begins it just goes on. 

That's just nature, that's just the circle of life and it moves us all - but maybe we never notice.

Everything is still. Everything just is. Everything is punctuated by personal actions and the actions of those close to us; passing by, rippling out, impacting like a wave affects an object floating in its wake. Like the gravitational pull of our planets keeps everything in place, just so. It means both everything and nothing: the slightest thing off and none of this would be. But that's all so far away, why think about it? 

Like a rock floating through space with a gravitational pull of 1.62m/s², it passes by and rouses us slight while the coast is in turmoil, waves crashing into its great body.

As that big rock passes your head for the hundredth time, and this time you think you have a real chance of grabbing it and climbing onboard and propelling yourself forward, something shifts, and instead, while you're poised ready to jump and catch it, BOMP! It knocks you on the head as it once again passes by. A missed opportunity, oh well maybe next time. Next time. Weight holding us down. Invisible blows knock us back, but time stays moving forward. Tomorrow I will start again. Tomorrow is the perfect time to begin. Tomorrow is always the best day to start. 

But how do you begin again after being away for so long? 

The truth about mental health is it doesn't end. It's a constant. As much as you try to breathe and say right, that's behind me now. No more energy to be wasted on that. Back to the thing I was doing before. As much as you try to say it doesn't affect you anymore. There is always something to pull you back in. It isn't a beginning or an end, it's a constant middle, it is a journey; a fucking cliche! I have been on my journey for a long time, and I have blamed writing (it was the last thing I was doing as my mind slipped away). But surely the words I chose weren't loaded enough to keep me out of action for six years? Hmmm.

But much like those battered coastlines, and the cratered rocks, I too have taken many beatings. And all those little impacts and fractures are bound to have altered the way I choose my words, how I place them, and how much they weigh... Plus I'm kind of out of practice so there may be a few fails along the way. Writing is a practice and here I am practicing. Reaching out with words that may never land; may never touch anyone, may never be read. Once upon a time, this platform had plenty of reach. Times change. People change. The internet has changed. Now my blog has sunk down to page six on Google – that's if you choose to google me in the first place – and who ever really strays from page one, maybe two at a push.

You might never read this but its ripples will be felt as I exercise my ability, as it leads on to something new, as eventually an endpoint to these words appears and this can count as very much a start point inside a long long journey.

Language + The Flesh + Artaud (+ Spero)

Musings:
When the pen pierces the page does it penetrate the skin. When the words cover the face does it become disfigured. When the mark marries with the body, is the trace erased or does it burn deeper. When language and the body are at one, does the father die?

All writing is pigshit, because it bares the mark of something else, because it becomes an object outside of the body - a partial object that survives its start point - at the authors throat. That lingers and becomes autonomous, that seems to "out grow the natural limitations of the organism affected by it". What of autonomy and the written word?

Where is the body that escapes me. Where is the body that is alien within me. Where words become the signal for the anamorphic real, where signs are permitted with enjoyment, with jouissance, which is replayed but never touched.