Whole People

I wonder when it was that I began to have real thoughts. The kind of thoughts that men are made of. I wonder when it was that I began to think myself worthy of abstract contemplation. Because every time I look back I see a half-formed person convinced of wholeness,

trying to tell herself she is right about something. Trying to say to herself that one topic at least is completed, that she is definitely done with that one thought. Every time I look back I see an awkward child smacking around in some sand pit with a fistful of empty words;

words which by comparison make even the sand seem countable. I see a child profoundly howling. And she doesn't understand why her throat hurts. She's shouting across oceans, but sometimes she forgets to check which way the wind blows, and her words come back at her

fiercely. To remind her of those thoughts she thought she'd left behind. Thoughts she'd forgotten, and ones still being spouted. And she isn't sure which is worse. To believe in change, or to believe in one's convictions strongly enough to continue to say the same thing,

just more heavily edited. Controlled, like life. This is the house you show the visitors. But really, I'm still writing about how I haven't changed my socks in days. Or how I sleep in my clothes sometimes because nobody is looking anyway,

and even if they were I would persist. Because otherwise life would be too mundane. I only know how to escape in childish ways. To the backseat of recurring dreams. Where everything is discreet and vague, and I can pretend it doesn't mean anything. I pretend I don't remember

what I used to be like. It's easier if you don't connect the pieces, because each piece is the same shape. And you need only admire the colours. Like photographs. Where everyone is smiling and keeping their thoughts in place. Like real completed people. I don't know

when it happens. I am constantly waking up. Into what I think to be the real thing. I keep watching and the contrast of the past grows thinner. It becomes harder to see. It turns into a dream again. Of a person who isn't yet old enough for real thoughts.