Solitary

                    I.

Don't know, but I've been thinking
That maybe I would like to spend a year
In voluntary solitary detention
Somewhere far away from here.

I’d like to make a fence to block the world out

I’d like to build a wall without a window

I’d like to take this web of galvanized wires 

Linking my brain to the rest of my world

This part of me that’s not myself

This artificial stimulation

Emotional connection with omnipotent frustration

I’d like to turn the wires all to spider strands

Floating in the shining autumn air

Slice them with a sweeping paper scimitar

Or a rusty pair of nail scissors

Leave them dangling, dissolving in the dark

(When the electricity shuts off

No more static)

                    II.

Don’t know, but I’ve been thinking
That maybe I would like to go away
From all this very arbitrary tension
Spinning a million reasons I should stay.

I’d like to find a lonely little place

Away from voices, faces, shallow feelings

Lock the door and throw the key away

Out of sight, out of mind, out of reach.

I think I’d like to wipe my memory

Of all the things I wish had never happened

I’d like to recreate reality – alone.
I am three-quarters sick of shadows

Three-quarters made of mindlessness

Indecent incongruity and callousness

I am not even sure you want me

Come away. A voice stuck on replay.

I wish I could (don’t you see?)
Maybe I will (what then?)

                    III.

Don’t know, but I’ve been thinking
That maybe I would like to be quite sure
Don’t look now, but did I mention?
I am foundering in failure.

Is it weakness?

This escapist discontent,

Melancholic addiction to loneliness?

Is it selfish?

This egocentric rejection of normality,

Illogical antipathy toward all things inevitable? 

Or is it the voice on replay?

Come away

Come away

From myself

From the other side of the Void.

Try to forget those monstrous motives

(As if Omniscience could forget)

Try to work it out regardless

(As if Omnipotence could try)

Take me away for a year, I do not ask for more

Lock me up for good – but not for ever

Isn’t that the point?

                    IV. 

Don’t know, but I’ve been thinking
That maybe I would like to make a wish
And keep it like a nova in suspension
Until we learn to play this hit-and-miss.

I am ready to say goodbye, now

Deep-sinking into insignificance

Because the world is dead to me

(At least, it was supposed to be)

Because the corpse in question is the only way of waking

Because the life unlived still has to be the life unwasted

Abstractness is so hard, you know

So this is why I want to go

Bury the face I tried to kill

Find a reason to be still; and know

Run off like a vigilante, traveling higher and further

Decamp and throw my guns away, with the nerve of a deserter

Search the lonely side-streets for the records of a murder

After all this time, I want to go through with it

Aborted assassination attempt

Or was it suicide?

(Do you understand yet?

‘Cause I don’t. Not quite.)

Don’t know, but I’ve been thinking

That maybe I would like to spend some time

In voluntary solitary detention

Learning how to die.