miniature resignation
February 23rd, 2010‘salinger was a genius. that’s not something to be said lightly or proudly, because it is a terrible and humbling thing to behold: genius is the perpetual state of the terrifying sublime, to behold the mountain and feel small, to register the universe and feel unreal, to witness the passing of the mountain and universe, … to, in short, understand that you will die, to know that the conditions of this world are hilariously insignificant and to, therefore, reorient yourself to what is nameless and highest and most frighteningly joyous. man is not the mountain.’

this was an anonymous comment in the new yorker, gone, shortly after i read it. i know i’ve been gone too, but listen, i am getting smaller everyday, and i love it. what have i gained from being too conspicuous so far anyways? (nothing) yeah, it’s been a while and first i stopped talking on the phone, then i stopped talking entirely (i said i have a throat infection, lost my voice). then i stopped writing, which is a form of talk isn’t it? then i stopped moving. dreams took up enough of my energy. i gave up eating. of course, most importantly, i stopped being loved. this was the most difficult of all but i think i succeeded, wouldn’t you agree? you can’t imagine how light I feel now (94 grams to be specific). i had given up on my fatal body long before that. last time i went to a gynecologist he had failed to push open my vagina. he was frustrated. poor guy.
that’s how i began to get smaller. unnoticable in a day, but you know it’s almost been a year now. i am tiny. the only things that remained the same were my hair and my nails. i guess they were already dead, that’s why. and that’s why i devoted myself to them, parts of me that are much bigger than me as a whole. i combed my hair, braided it, pulled it up, twisted it down, covered myself with it, swam in it, hid, rolled in a ball. got hundreds of tiny, shiny polishes and painted my nails, carefully, faithfully, blew on them, held them apart. can’t say that wasn’t fun. so now i am almost invisible. remember someone saying ‘if we didn’t do anything, we wouldn’t be anybody’? i am almost there except for the nails and hair. you can’t imagine what a relief it is not to be played around anymore. and being so close to the details, it’s a whole different world down here. the textures, the smells, the unseen, hurtful remains of the world’s millions of drugged up heirs.
it is in proper order now. takes me a day to get out of bed and reach the door. at this pace, i wouldn’t be able to find you even if i struggled for a lifetime of mine. that’s why i am ecstatically stuck here, in a place i can’t see farther than the corner of the pillow and let’s be realistic, probably some day a family member will unknowingly step on me. the wonderful thing is, i wouldn’t make a noise, or even hurt. since i am now made up of already dead things.








