Shake the rattles of our jazz. / There’s lies in the kitchen too, and they / are how bright. // Twittering, we run run each other, / try on expensive cabinets and hats. // Rough light is in this time. / Withered is the trencher, / so we make a place for mothers / in the house. Twinkle at the time / a clock strikes, a certain time of day, // and I see the chime of the bells, / listen to their whiteblue sound.
Jacob opened up an entirely new door for us. After that, we often spoke to the camera directly, to our therapist, when it felt like speaking to each other was getting us nowhere. I loved how cinematic it felt, how odd it was to speak through the lens. I was reminded of a moment in Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, where the narrator says: Frankly, have you ever heard of anything stupider than to say to people, as they teach in film school, not to look at the camera?
Pain is uninteresting to everyone except the person who experiences it, and even then, the appeal wears off. I became bored by my own pain, afraid that I was becoming irrelevant, ceasing to exist. Who was I if I could not teach, could not parent, could not write? Pain makes a very poor companion, and rather enjoys maximizing presence so that no one and nothing else can occupy your time. I worried about Stockholm Syndrome: was I making nice with my pain or simply getting used to him?