Take It
Take the origin of banal: a
bannal-mill where tenants
carried their corn to be ground
for the benefit of the lord. But
imagine it without the lord, all
of us taking our corn to the mill
saying I’m sad, I’m lonely,
I can’t take it, & then grinding
the corn, baking it, sharing it.
I eat if you eat. Maybe it’s the
knowledge of what’s shared –
or could be – that stops me on
the point of exposure, of breaking
down, because I can’t let go of
feelings, of the belief in a singular
self without which I disappear,
or hear you speaking with my
mouth, my pain in yours. Why
do you write? I saw you standing
on the corner with a bag of food.
When the lights changed it was
summer & we were by the river,
talking. I was trying to explain
why writing is pointless, but you
were there. The point of writing is
to address you. It’s so embarrassing
to talk like this. A description
is not a birthday, said Gertrude
Stein. Its aim should be to avoid
empathy. Make no one understood.
Remember wanting to construct
a metaphor out of stacking crates
with nice patterns? I was going
to say that sympathy exists in
opposition to the self, but then
I saw a crate on the pavement full
of dirty bedding & I couldn’t write.
What we need from writing exceeds
what’s possible within it. But I
recognise writing by the need, at
naptimes, to communicate without
moving any part of the body. If
it feels possible, it is. Look at you
standing there. At the checkout,
I’d forgotten what I had to buy &
in trying to remember it a memory
appeared like washing-up liquid
replaced by fizzy drinks, a feeling
that didn’t begin with me. And
I pictured you saying that to
yourself as you waited on the
corner with a bag of food, also
having forgotten some obvious
thing, its place taken by the image
of a river covered with green
scum, fish floating to the surface in
a sudden trance. You couldn’t
work out where it was or where
the voices came from but the fact
it happened somewhere made
us both feel calm so we decided,
standing there, to regard all our
feelings as mutual, the only action
as collective, & speech a way
of taking it to you
Will Harris is a writer, born and based in London. He is the author of RENDANG and his new project is called Weather & Address.
