paper # 9, berlin, (..) march 2009

i'm stuck

and i don't know how to change that

stuck

a terrible word, when you hear it. or write it. it is one of those few words of absolute self-fulfillment, completely wrapped around itself, so that when you say "stuck", or write "stuck", it is stuck

stuck

my tongue tastes of cold steel when i'm stuck. which is strange, since that sense of being able to taste cold steel, is something ephemeral i've always related to my childhood. sticking my tongue out to taste my grandfather's reaper. or my uncle's hunting rifle. also my father's shaving-knife. all these secrets concerning cold steel that would never be revealed. are they my secrets? how and why do i remember them? once in a while; something uncertain, a brush of unbearable nostalgia, so unreal, but present, so alive. the tongue, scraped, it must be something else, the tongue, so anesthetized by strawberries, or insect bites

i roll one of my father's cigarettes, even though he stopped smoking ten years ago. i need this one, i have been dreaming about this smoke. i have always been looking at this pack of tobacco, with unbearably nostalgic eyes. now, ten years later, even though you stopped, i roll one

your judging eyes, i could almost change my mind

what should i say in your funeral? should i hold it against you, and disclose to everyone how cheap you are? how common? and how can i actually tell you how much you mean to me?

i'm stuck. i ran out of words just as, just AS, they were about to come, just before, right now. my words for you, your words. and i know that i'm talking about myself, that this is totally unfair, that i actually mean me, and my words for me, that it is one word, and that it is inverted, and written on a loose tongue, somewhere around where i grew up

and it holds more than my language

despite your advice, none of the girls would go to bed with me, or fuck, or kiss and hug or however it now was. i went to youth club after youth club, and i still do, go to youth club after youth club, only now, and this is different, i operate on arenas where i always win. too old now for fantasies and dreams. and insecurities.

and this: running for my life through boiling blood. and this: the nervous passion that brings it to the boiling point

stuck

stuck in idolatry and remnants from dreams, stuck in the sleeping, stuck in the waking

stuck, and surely not stuck