september 28 2024

I take a vow of silence for the month of September.
An accident. A happenstance.
I’m trying to figure things out.
I’m trying to get myself together.
I read nothing. I listen to nothing except for my album.
I go to see everyone but I don’t let them see me.
I start psychoanalysis. I go to church with my bestie.
Later, I go to the club to watch the strippers and sip on chilled Prosecco.

I confess and complain in too many places at once.
Are you there, God? It’s me, an esoteric bitch on the internet.

I consider taking up smoking to take the edge off but I’m too vain, too full of “I” to let all this debasement empty me out.

Simone Weil says,
“we posses nothing in the world except the power to say ‘I’”
and
“nothing in the world can rob us of the power to say ‘I’. nothing except extreme affliction.”

She says,
“it is our duty to expose ourselves to affliction”
and
“we must not ask for the removal of such a difficulty: we must beg for grace to make good use of it.”

I lower my cheek to the ground and start digging for grace.
I come up with empty hands caked in dirt.
I find nothing but more and more of myself.