I
wonder if I was already a person prepared to be surrounded by death around the
age of twelve. When I think about it, it feels strange, depressing, special,
and utterly insignificant. Having so many holes in my body that my emotions
would infinitely open up toward the world—that was ultimately what I wanted,
but I also read somewhere that it is an early symptom of depression, defined as
an illness.
I am severed. If only I could honestly say that I cannot write
honestly. Honestly. Honestly, I like sunlight, food, sex, compliments, having
the right to destroy someone because I'm beautiful, being destroyed by someone
beautiful, being loved. If only, like everyone else, I could say honestly that
I like those things. If only I could tell the people I love that I like them,
that I love them so much.
They say nothing degrades a person more than not
being loved. It is truly sad not to have something because only those who have
things can be bold. Overflowing with confidence, taking delight along with
everything else in the human world. Yesterday, that boy tasted delicious. His
young body's fishy smell and childish pranks were cute, and making him come was
fun. He felt like a tender vegetable, so beautiful it would start to brown by
tomorrow or the next day. But living people are scary.
The fact that they can
reject me at any time gives me a thrilling feeling. Living young people are
even scarier. They make me feel old, miserable, and ugly. They can sense
something, but they do not yet perceive the darkness or misery of life. Even if
they have cloudy eyes, they are fine. They are merciless. Being caught by such
a gaze is terrifying and thrilling, like falling into a pit. The reason we
stare at lumps, holes, dough, piles, and pits is because they cannot speak. Wet
and slippery things do not hold firmly in the hand; they slip and crumble.
The
dark insides are not visible. Wet, writhing things do not engage with language.
Thus, they have no relationship with understanding or being understood. Some
things in the world seem to say: don't even try to talk to us. It’s scary, but
you have to reach your hand in. It feels like a wound suddenly torn open by
lightning. I'm too scared to look straight into it to see how deep it is. I
know, it's urgent, but I am not facing it directly. Why would I? If I did, life
would end.
Today, I read a poem that said to glare at the things you cannot
look at directly—for example, the sun, death. A new friend from Taiwan has a
slightly twisted face. When I told a new Irish friend that it was hard for me
to look directly at the Taiwanese friend's face, the Irish friend asked if it
was because he looked disabled. We laughed hard, feeling awkward. Asymmetrical
things are truly frightening. Like the uterus. Like the Fritzl case. Like the
hand-kneaded curves of a basement.
At such times, what's needed is the
smoothness of rendered surfaces, the trembling of freshly made custard pudding.
Those things let you forget about death. We fear the organic—naturally. In the
truly organic world, we would have to give up all our human play-pretend:
embarrassed faces, heated atmospheres, tears almost shed, strange bravado,
secrets forever hidden in imagination. Shame, above all shame. Updating the
latest shame in your mind, always producing greater shame to blur the old ones.
Living in either constant fear of things not quite alive or in shame because of
things that are. But I am living. I want all the good things life has to offer.
The exhibition site I visited the other day was so vast and splendid it
thrilled me. The thoughts and plans buzzing in my head were so muscular and
male, like machines. It was such a strange feeling—I imagined a penis, strained
to the brink, about to burst with ejaculation. I worried someone might see me
like that—see my ambition, my semen bursting out uncontrollably. Once, while
driving alone, I whispered, "Mother, save me."
At night, while my
lover was showering, I read his ex-girlfriend's blog before having sex, feeling
a weird mix of solidarity, betrayal, and fictionality all at once. I wondered
if many women think of sex with men as a kind of revenge. Yet, no matter what,
we're just soft-bodied humans, and everything is simply cute. I love witnessing
people abandon their humanity for a moment. Those moments are beautiful; they
make life feel worthwhile. But if I found out tomorrow that I was pregnant, I
would probably go to Amsterdam, take Mifegyne, and get an abortion.
And I would
keep working as if nothing happened. That wouldn't make me any braver or
stronger; independence is the farthest thing from me. I've never not felt
lonely. Always bored, always empty. Even with many friends, even with few
friends. I’ve always wanted to die from loneliness. The world I am most
familiar with—the damp world—is the time spent searching for pornography with
bloodshot eyes, ultimate concentration, and patience before masturbation.
Sometimes, during those moments, I think about my mother, or about death, and I
get scared. After spending three or four hours like that, I feel empty and
ridiculous. I don't understand why some things never stop. Will I still be
watching hentai and masturbating at seventy? I glimpse my face in the black
screen right before an anime or video plays. Different lives, different lives.
Would I have returned to this world no matter how I lived? Would I still have
wanted to smash my own face?
Sometimes, when I'm high, I think of my mother. I
imagine buying her something, taking her somewhere—say, Dubai, for an
exhibition. I think of her as an old woman, gifting her a fur scarf or a bag,
like handing a cat to an old lady in an armchair. Writing this is painful, but
when I think, "Does she have 10 or 20 years left?"
I feel overwhelmed
with sorrow and just cry. Mother. When I picture the future, it's strangely
sad—it feels as if everything is already dead, or pathetically compromised,
small. All I can imagine is Mediterranean sunshine, hemp farms, two big shaggy
dogs, eating octopus dishes, smoking cigarettes, junk food, friends sitting
around a table scattered with books and fruits, sunbathing.
If the sun is still
there. Yet, part of me is sustained by an urge to set fires, by the leaking,
bursting things, by someone grabbing my shoulders and shaking me madly, by
someone crying so hard their face swells (maybe from joy). I am sustained by
identification with those things. A long time ago, I heard the story of a girl
who secretly grew wings on her back from childhood.
As an adult, she couldn't
find a normal job, afraid her wings would be discovered, so she joined a
circus. She flew through the air. People marveled that they couldn't see the
strings. She had to make it look like a performance—if they realized it was
real, it would be a disaster. I don't remember if she fell in the end.
