Hoping for a twist in our despair. Hoping for a turn in our despair. And that’s all we can hope for: that our despair might change direction. That our despair might change quality. Might taste different. Might offer itself in another tone. Another flavour.
To be absorbed by the black sun. To disappear into the black sun. We’re drowning in the black sun.
A new turn in despair. A detour in despair. A way despair isn’t quite so despairing, for a moment. A novelty in despair. Still despair, but a slightly changed despair.
Despair. Basic. A given. The first thing: despair. Waking in despair, breakfasting in despair, walking to the Metro in despair, catching the Metro in despair, heading up to the purple office in despair. What has there ever been but despair?
Unrelenting, our despair. Continual, our despair. How do you get out from under it? From its pressure? How can you make the weight of despair shift? So it doesn’t press down as heavily. Our limbs are heavy. We walk bent over. Spiritually bent over, if not actually bent over.
Do we deserve this? What did we do wrong, in a previous life? What sin did we commit, in a previous life? And where are we going to take this life? What’s going to happen in this life, and in future lives?
Outbreaks of evil. A kind of weather of evil. Changeable evil.
The evil is massing, like clouds. Evil, thickening. Covering the sky. My God, is that all there is: evil? Is there only unrelenting evil? Is it really evil from the beginning to the end?
We need help with evil, just as we need help with despair. We need someone wise in … spiritual attacks. Because there are demons out there. They’re quite real. And demons inside, too. Demons we’ve invited inside, somehow. Who’ve come inside, possessed us.
Why can’t there be some peace in despair. Some tranquillity. Some let up. Why must it always crowd us? Press itself up to us?
Why won’t it let us get away from it? Establish some distance. Why won’t it make room for something other than despair?
Lack of hope – that’s what it means. But the de- of despair isn’t privative. Nothing’s lacking. It’s total. It crowds everything else out. It is itself and nothing other than itself.
Our despair – it isn’t even ours. It doesn’t even belong to us. It comes from outside. It’s a curse. It’s an invasion. Somehow we allowed it in.
We need an exorcist. A spiritual expert. Where should we go? To the nearest church? Fall on our knees?
We’re in spiritual need. In desperate need. Is there someone who could cure us? Who could reach us?
Does drinking induce despair or lighten it? Lighten it – for the night. But there are hangovers the next day. There’s weariness the next day. Beingabandoned to weariness next day.
Shouldn’t we forgo drinking? Shouldn’t we just stop? But what then? A night without lightness. A night without anti-despair.
We can’t fight despair all by ourselves. We need the drink – don’t we? We need alcohol – that’s right, isn’t it? We need an accelerant. We need an intensifier. Otherwise – what?
We need to soar in our despair. Touch despair’s roof. Touch despair’s sky – the limits of its sky. Rise against its gravity. Struggle with it. Against it. Rise – cry. And then sink down again – of course. And then fall again – necessarily.
You rose. You cried. You drank. And drink lifted you. Drink bore you upwards. You were drunk, in your despair, but not, for a moment, defeated in your despair. You rose against. You rose – touched the sky. Fell back.
Work in Progress 