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core of their own rigid and fatal destiny. And I
dream of luxuriant grandeurs deepened in the darkness: whirl of abundance, where
the velvety and carnivorous plants are we who have just sprouted, sharp love—
slow faint.
    Could it be that what I am writing to you is beyond
thought? Reasoning is what it is not. Whoever can stop reasoning—which is
terribly difficult—let them come along with me. But at least I’m not imitating
a movie star and nobody needs to lift me to their lips or become a
stewardess.
    I’ve got a confession to make: I’m a little frightened.
For I don’t know where my freedom will lead me. It is neither arbitrary nor
libertine. But I am unbound.
    Every once in a while I’ll give you a light story—
melodic and cantabile area to break up this string quartet of mine: a figurative
interval to open a clearing in my nourishing jungle.
    Am I free? There is some thing still holding me. Or
am I holding it? It’s also this: I’m not entirely unbound because I am in union
with everything. Moreover one person is everything. It’s not heavy to carry
because it simply isn’t carried: it is everything.
    It seems to me that for the first time I’m knowing about
things. My impression is that I only don’t go more toward things to not surpass
myself. I have a certain fear of myself, I’m not to be trusted and mistrust my
false power.
    This is the word of someone who cannot.
    I direct nothing. Not even my own words. But it’s not
sad: it’s happy humility. I, who live sideways, am to your left as you come in.
And the world trembles within me.
    Is this word to you promiscuous? I would like it not to
be, I am not promiscuous. But I am kaleidoscopic: I’m fascinated by my sparkling
mutations that I here kaleidoscopically record.
    Now I am going to stop for a while to deepen myself more.
Then I’ll be back.
    I’m back. I was existing. I received a letter from São
Paulo from a person I don’t know. A final suicide note. I called São Paulo. No
one answered, it rang and rang and echoed as if in a silent apartment. Did he
die or not die. This morning I called again: still no answer. He died, yes. I’ll
never forget.
    I’m no longer frightened. Let me talk, all right? I was
born like this: drawing from my mother’s uterus the life that was always
eternal. Wait for me—all right? When I paint or write I’m anonymous. My
profound anonymity which no one ever touched.
    I have an important thing to tell you. Because I’m not
joking:
it
is the pure element. Material of the instant of time. I am
not objectivizing anything: I am having the real birth of
it
. I feel
faint like someone about to be born.
    To be born: I’ve watched a cat give birth. The kitten
emerges wrapped in a sack of fluid and all huddled inside. The mother licks the
sack of fluid so many times that it finally breaks and there a kitten almost
free, only attached by its umbilical cord. Then the mother-creator-cat breaks
that cord with her teeth and another fact appears in the world. That process is
it
. I am not joking. I am earnest. Because I am free. I am so
simple.
    I am giving freedom to you. First I rip the sack of
fluid. Then I cut the umbilical cord. And you are alive on your own account.
    And when I am born, I become free. That is the foundation
of my tragedy.
    No. It’s not easy. But it “is.” I ate my own placenta so
as not to have to eat for four days. To have milk to give you. Milk is a “this.”
And no one is I. No one is you. That is what solitude is.
    I’m waiting for the next phrase. It’s a matter of
seconds. Speaking of seconds I ask if you can stand for time to be today and now
and right away. I can stand it because I ate my own placenta.
    At half past three in the morning I woke up. And
immediately elastic I jumped out of bed. I came to write you. I mean: be. Now
it’s half past five. I want nothing: I am pure. I don’t wish this solitude on
you. But I myself am in the creating fog. Lucid darkness,