Sunday, August 04, 2013

Promesses

I know that most of you don't read French, but this is something I wrote over a year and a half ago that I just came by now. It breaks my heart for a couple of reasons. 

First off, I used to write. So much. Beautiful things. Things that people offered to publish for me but that I was too shy to accept. Things that would shatter your heart a million times and a million more if you re-read them. And now I can't. Because my mind just can't do it anymore, because I'm too tired, because it was effortless back then, because now it requires too much from me to dig into myself and put my pain out on paper. And because everything just isn't quite as good anymore. How can you settle for less-than-perfect when you've tasted perfection and held it in your hand, molded it and shaped it and given it back to the world to shine and sparkle in the sunlight? How can you accept anything less than that when you've had it? That's what is so difficult to explain: I used to be extraordinary. For real. No exaggeration. I used to be fucking fantastic. People may say that I still am, but I'm not. I'm just not. So why would I settle for a life of mediocrity when the extraordinary imbibed every cell in my body? Why would I choose that kind of life over no life at all?

The second reason that it breaks my heart is that you can feel the pain that I felt when I wrote this. You can tell that I wasn't well. I'm sure that it would make people uncomfortable in that way that people have of averting their eyes from extreme pain and desolation. This was written over a year and a half ago, but it screams my anguish out to the world. Thing is, you can tell that I was still trying to claw my way out of it, that I was still fighting to live and to keep breathing. I'm not anymore. Now a good day for me consists of getting out of bed for a bit. Today wasn't a good day. Today I cancelled all my plans, made excuses and fabricated lies. And I stayed in bed. I simply do not want to fight anymore. But, probably because the docs lowered my meds, this also means that I am not capable of fighting to die either. I'm unable to put the effort into killing myself. So I remain in this limbo, nether dead nor really alive. Just lying here while my heart and brain play chicken, waiting to see who will explode or give in first. 

Here is the poem. It's called Promesses. It's a bit long, I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that I never wrote beautiful things in English. I just always found French so much better for expressing emotion. If you put it through a translator, it will probably massacre what I consider to be beautiful, but you can try. I was 19 when I wrote this. It amazes me. I don't even remember writing it, probably because my brain is fried from my OD. But it amazes me that, at 19, I already felt 100 years old. I was already carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. No wonder I'm crumbling.

Promesses
À la naissance
De rêves, d’ambitions
De futurs infinis
De possibilités innombrables
D’horizons sans limites.

La vie vacille et ondule,
Une mer
Parfois rageuse et cruelle,
Parfois soumise, domptée.
Le temps,
Ce long fil argenté,
Reflète l’âge,
Miroitant l’âme,
Comme si tout ce qui nous définit
Pouvait être inscrit sur si peu d’espace.

Les promesses,
Écrites dans le sable,
Sans défense contre les tumultes,
Effacées.
Alors, nous en traçons d’autres,
Tels des enfants
Un bâton à la main
Certains de rien
Sauf de notre propre existence
(Descartes, se prenant pour un génie
N’a fait que répéter les secrets bien connus de l’enfance).

Mais elles ne sont plus les mêmes.
Moins profondes,
De loin, elles sembleraient sans pertinence.
Et elles le sont.
Il ne s’agit plus de rêver,
Mais de jouer à rêver
(Comme si les plaisirs nocturnes
Pouvaient être plus que l’écho du réel plaisir)
À ces choses
Brillantes et éclatantes
Que l’on nous met sous le nez
Pour nous faire oublier l’essentiel.

Ces rêves,
Je n’en veux pas.
Je n’y aspire pas.
Ils ne m’inspirent pas.
Je veux tellement plus.
De penser
Qu’ils me résumeront
Me gèle et me brûle en même temps,
Me rapetissant
Jusqu’à ce que je ne sois plus.
Invisible.

Je préfère mourir
Dans un tourbillon écarlate
Que de n’avoir plus qu’eux.

Alors
Je m’acharne et me démène
Tentant, en vain peut-être,
De muer cette peau
Noircie et ternie de leurs faussetés,
De m’en défaire
Pour exposer au soleil et à la brise
Le plus profond de mes entrailles
Pour au moins,
Et enfin,
Ressentir quelque chose.

Mes ambitions à moi sont plus grandes.
Elles ne se comptent pas,
Ni en S rayés,
Ni en ventres gonflés.
Elles explosent en moi,
M’en crevant le cœur
Jusqu’à ce que tout ce que je ressente
Soit sensations.
Je ne me laisserai pas bercer,
Rendre docile par le temps et la torpeur,
Devenir invisible dans les rides et la routine,
Dompter par les ardeurs refroidies et les aspirations feues.

Je ne suis pas ces autres
Marchant, engourdis et somnolant,
Inexorablement vers la mort
Sans révolte.
Laissez-moi hurler ma rage
À m’en arracher la gueule.
Laissez-moi m’indigner,
Me secouer,
Courir,
Pas chancelants et incertains, peut-être,
Mais sentant mes muscles exploser,
Mon cœur s’extirper.

Courir, oui,
Sur le fil
Jetant mille reflets sur ce monde,
Le baignant dans toutes les couleurs
Vues et invisibles,
Éblouissant les regards mornes,
Arrachant des cris de douleur
En s’inscrivant sur la rétine
De ceux rendus aveugles par la noirceur.

Je veux tellement plus.
J’aspire à tellement plus.
Alors, laissez-moi.
Laissez-moi souffrir,
Maudire.
Laissez-moi abattre
Ces murs de pierre
Construits avec tant de calcul
Quitte à ce que ce soit
De mes mains nues,
Arrachant peau et ongles.
Quitte à saigner.
Au moins,
J’aurai ressenti quelque chose.
Au moins,
J’aurai laissé une trace.



2 comments:

  1. wow, you wrote that? that's amazing!
    it's so beautiful...
    i really like the part about "jouer a rever". so so true.
    maybe you'll be able to write like this again once you start feeling better. i do hope that you start feeling better soon.

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  2. Well, I don't read French, but I'm currently taking a French class, so this is going to be my project. I'm not going to just copy and paste into a google translator, but I'll sit with my dictionary and look up the conjegations of the verbs, because obviously this is something very personal and special to you. I wouldn't want it massacred by a crappy translation. I'll let you know once I get it done, plus I really need to work on my French, I'm trying not to be horrible at it.

    Also, if you're starting from the beginning of my blog, God bless you...it goes back to when I was 17 and sooooo much has changed in me as a person and a writer. But if you want to take that route, by all means. I still have to read about whatever happened in Singapore, but it sounds like you're going even when you just want to stop, so I commend that. Take care dear and I'm looking forward to translating this.

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