Self Portrait, by Marcellon Desboutin, 1879

I don't know for whom it is I should write any more.  I used to write for myself.  But it seems I am no longer sure who that person is.  So I am going to tell some things, list some things maybe, that might help explain me to myself.  In the process. . . well, you may get more bored.

I have a very large bed that I sleep in alone.  I haven't always, but I have for some time.  And tonight I realized that it has been a long while since I kissed someone for the first time.  That was a curious sensation.

The bed thing is curious, too.  I don't need such a large bed.  As a matter of fact, I never move when I am in it, or not from the spot in the bed, the extreme right side of it, on which I sleep though I do move much, spinning in place around and around and around.  I don't know how I came to that, or maybe I do.  A long time ago, I read a book about a European boy in Africa who ran away from home with only some salt and some flour.  He traveled through the bush and through the deserts.  He slept in the open and at night snakes would come to him and sleep beside him for warmth.  He learned, he wrote, not to move for they were often poisonous snakes that could easily kill him with a single bite.  He had learned to sleep without moving.

Perhaps that was it, or maybe I was being considerate to the one who was sharing my bed.  Now, though, it often seems ridiculous to change the sheets, for only a small part of them have been used.  I have begun to change only the pillow cases on the few pillows I sleep with, too, though there are too many others on the bed with me.

But the other part.  It is hard to think of changing.  I despair, I guess, of kissing a woman for the first time again.  Why, I wonder to myself, but I think I know why right away.  I am no longer that fellow.  I am not that guy.  There comes a point when you are either with someone or you are not, and if you are not. . . .

I have felt hollow and empty for a while now, and insubstantial, too.  There is wind, and there is air, and there is rain, and there is sun.  And if there was only that, it would be fine.

I must find the words, I think, or else I'm lost, though words have never solved anything for me.  There is no wordsmithing your way to what you want.  There is only writing.

A train plays its whistle song in the distance.  The temperature drops.  Though it is early, it has long been dark.  I will go to spin alone in my bed soon through the longish night.