The Quiet Lie

It has been over a year since the RSI took hold of my hands.

There have been moments of progress, which in and of themselves were marvellous things, like remembering to breathe, like warm water on cool skin, like seeing the way out.

These peaks were inevitably followed by their equal in troughs, which were made all the more devastating by those brief tastes of hope, like being snatched by the undertow, like a cold wind across cold water, like walls, walls, walls.

What dies when the pain returns is not simply my ability to exist comfortably in my body, but in my mind. I cannot write. It hurts. I cannot write. It hurts. There are walls, walls, walls.

And I, I do not like to fail. I do not like to be defeated. The only person who will judge me is myself, and that alone is too much. That I witness myself turn a piece of writing over in my mind until I must write it. That I watch myself sit, and begin, and stop because my muscles are burning and nothing has been accomplished. I find myself wanting. I am one witness too many for my regular retreats.

Each time I do this, the walls creep a little closer.

Now they are close enough I cannot write.

I will not write.

It is not enough to cease the action. The desire remains, and to keep this division between will and world from destroying me in a different yet still thorough manner I must stifle that too. I must silence my voice.

It is not enough to cease expression. That inner narration remains, and to keep the pent up thoughts from destroying me in a different yet still thorough manner I must sow enough salt that nothing grows, and I have nothing to say.

Do not be an entity that nurses curiosity. Do not ask questions, do not explore your ignorance, do not seek answers. Do not desire. Do not analyse. Do not absorb. Build nothing within yourself. Draw your horizons in close. Fight no battles. Marvel at no mysteries. Be affected by no change in the world around you. Do not affect change in the world around you.

I am vast. The psychological space I occupy sprawls out across the carpet, slips beneath the door and raises itself to the satellites. It is not that I am removing the architecture within this space. I will not be empty by the time this is done.

I am undoing that space entirely. Eventually, I will exist only behind my eyes and between my ears. I will be small, and full of what small pieces are left of me. I will concern myself with grout on the bathroom tiles and the specials on tea and butter on at the local supermarket.

I will not be worth knowing, and by the time this happens, I will not be the sort of person to whom this would even occur.

Written 19:07 16 August 2010