*
I learn the texture of minutes, how hours weave themselves
through the tangled mind: I am silent. Coitus is the punishment
for running from time: hating quiet: fearing life.
*
I betray solitude. I get drunk, pick up a cab driver. Coitus is
the punishment.
*
I write day in and day out, night after night, alone, in the quiet
of this exquisite concentration, this exquisite aloneness, this
extreme new disordering of the senses: solitude, my beloved.
Coitus is the punishment for not daring to be extreme enough,
for compromising, for conforming, for giving in. Coitus is the
punishment for not daring to disorder the senses enough: by
knowing them without mediation. Coitus is the punishment
for not daring to be original, unique, discrete.
I am not distracted, I am alone, I love solitude, this is passion
too. I am intensely happy. When I see people, I am no less
alone: and I am not lonely. I concentrate when I write: pure
concentration, like life at the moment of dying. I dream the
89
answers to my own questions when I sleep. I am not tranquil,
it is not my nature, but I am intensely happy. Coitus is the
punishment for adulterating solitude.
*
I forget the lovers of Europe. They don’t matter. The terror
still comes, it envelops me, solitude fights it tooth and nail,
solitude wins. I forget what I have done on these streets here.
It doesn’t matter. I concentrate. I am alone. The solitude is
disruption, extremity, extreme sensation in dense isolation.
This is a private passion, not for exhibit. Coitus is the
punishment for exhibiting oneself: for being afraid to be happy
in private, alone. Coitus is the punishment for needing a human
witness. I write. Solitude is my witness.
Coitus is the punishment for the happiness of being. Solitude is
the end of punishment.
I write. I publish.
Coitus is punishment. I write down everything I know, over
some years. I publish. I have become a feminist, not the fun
kind. Coitus is punishment, I say. It is hard to publish. I am a
feminist, not the fun kind. Life gets hard. Coitus is not the
only punishment. I write. I love solitude: or slowly, I would
die. I do not die.
Coitus is punishment. I am a feminist, not the fun kind.
