I have worked diligently for the past two months to complete my first draft. There has been nothing else in my room but stacks of tainted paper and nothing else in my mind but loosed words. Those words I have placed on that paper, but no matter their order or form, they slip off, never hold. And then there are those that repeat. ‘Pillowcase’, ‘lavender’, ‘smile’. They will give me no rest. They fill my pages ruthlessly.

When I walk through the door, there is nothing else but my study room. It’s the only part of my house not filled with words of its own, words from elsewhere. The veil I attempt to throw on those foreign forms has no effect; they remain indifferent, pleading, immutable. So I go to my study, lock the door so those words may have no in. Outside they rumble, but in here I am safe.

If only I didn’t preserve those words perfectly myself, they might go away. But I cannot; yet I must, but I cannot. Their lingering flavours curse my hallowed halls, imbue them with novel intrigue that refuses to yield to inquiry. If these sheets are to wrap my tortured limbs, my tomb will be in the sacred temple blessed by curses, where flesh is allowed to decay. My empty halls are filled with noise. I’ll suffer its slights as I remember the silence whose place it took.

I look at my room. Every surface is buried beneath stacks of rambling pages. Two months ago – what was there before? I remember the form, I notice that nothing has changed. Yet if I clean them up, where will I put these new sheets?

29.VIII.2024