“It so happens I am sick of being a man.And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie housesdried up, waterproof, like a swan made of feltsteering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nailsand my hair and my shadow.It so happens I am sick of being a man.Still it would be marvelousto terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.It would be greatto go through the streets with a green knifeletting out yells until I died of the cold.I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,taking in and thinking, eating every day.I don't want so much misery.I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,half frozen, dying of grief.That's why Monday, when it sees me comingwith my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestineshanging over the doors of houses that I hate,and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,there are mirrorsthat ought to have wept from shame and terror,there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,my rage, forgetting everything,I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:underwear, towels and shirts from which slowdirty tears are falling”

“I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,my rage, forgetting everything,I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedicshops,and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:underwear, towels and shirts from which slowdirty tears are falling.”

“I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,vacillating, stretched out, shivering with sleep,downward, in the soaked guts of the earth,absorbing and thinking, eating each day.”

“I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don't want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made.”

“Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twigand lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,a cracked bell, or a torn heart.Something from far off: it seemeddeep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,a shout muffled by huge autumns,by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprigsang under my tongue, its drifting fragranceclimbed up through my conscious mindas if suddenly the roots I had left behindcried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood—-and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.”

“Of everything I have seen, it's you I want to go on seeing: of everything I've touched, it's your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. What am I to do, love, loved one? I don't know how others love or how people loved in the past. I live, watching you, loving you. Being in love is my nature.”

“LXXIXWhen I die, I want your hands on my eyes.I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me once more.I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.I want what I love to continue to live,and you whom I love and sang above everything else.to continue to flourish, full-flowered.So that you can reach everything my love directs you to. So that my shadow can travel along in your hair,so that everything can learn the reason for my song.”