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For A Long Time I Believed The Opposite Of Passion Was Death. I Was Wrong. Passion And Death Are Implicit, One In The Other. Past The Border Of A Fiery Life Lies The Netherworld. I Can Trace This Road, Which Took Me Through Places So Hot The Very Air Burned The Lungs. I Did Not Turn Back. I Pressed On, And Eventually Passed Over The Border, Beyond Which Lies A Place That Is Wordless And Cold, So Cold That It, Like Mercury, Burns A Freezing Blue Flame.

-Marya Hornbacher

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For A Long Time

Marya Hornbacher

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For A Long Time I Believed The Opposite Of Passion Was Death. I Was Wrong. Passion And Death Are Implicit, One In The Other. Past The Border Of A Fiery Life Lies The Netherworld. I Can Trace This Road, Which Took Me Through Places So Hot The Very Air Burned The Lungs. I Did Not Turn Back. I Pressed On, And Eventually Passed Over The Border, Beyond Which Lies A Place That Is Wordless And Cold, So Cold That It, Like Mercury, Burns A Freezing Blue Flame.

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That Nothing - Not Booze, Not Love, Not Sex, Not Work, Not Moving From State To State - Will Make The Past Disappear.

[i] Learned ... That Friends Are A Good Source Of Food And Soul When One Has Not Yet Gotten The Hang Of Cooking Or Living (as Opposed To Dying) Alone. That Nothing-not Booze, Not Love, Not Sex, Not Work, Not Moving From State To State-will Make The Past Disappear. Only Time And Patience Heal Things. I Learned That Cutting Up Your Arms In An Attempt To Make The Pain Move From Inside To Outside, From Soul To Skin, Is Futile. That Death Is A Cop-out. I Tried All Of These Things.

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Eating Disorder

The Fact That You Were Essentially Dead Does Not Register Until You Begin To Come Alive.

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That’s The Nice Thing About Dreams, The Way You Wake Up Before You Fall.

When You Are Mad, Mad Like This, You Don't Know It. Reality Is What You See. When What You See Shifts, Departing From Anyone Else's Reality, It's Still Reality To You.

I Wish I Could Find Words To Explain What This Kind Of Cold Is Like- The Cold That Has Somehow Gotten In Underneath Your Skin And Is Getting Colder And Colder Inside You.

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Children Take In More Information Than We'd Like To Believe.

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You Wake Up One Morning And There It Is, Sitting In An Old Plaid Bathrobe In Your Kitchen, Unpleasant And Unshaved. You Look At It, Heart Sinking. Madness Is A Rotten Guest.

There Is Never A Sudden Revelation, A Complete And Tidy Explanation For Why It Happened, Or Why It Ends, Or Why Or Who You Are. You Want One And I Want One, But There Isn't One. It Comes In Bits And Pieces, And You Stitch Them Together Wherever They Fit, And When You Are Done You Hold Yourself Up, And Still There Are Holes And You Are A Rag Doll, Invented, Imperfect. And Yet You Are All That You Have, So You Must Be Enough. There Is No Other Way.

He Leaned Down And Whispered To Me: No Matter How Thin You Get, No Matter How Short You Cut Your Hair, It's Still Going To Be You Underneath. And He Let Go Of My Arm And Walked Back Down The Hall.

Crazy Isn´t Always What They Say It Is. It´s Not Always The Old Woman Wearing Sneakers And A Skirt And A Scarf, Wandering Around With A Shopping Cart, Hollering At No One, Nothing, Tumbling Through Years In Her Head. No. Sometimes It Is A Girl Wearing Boots And Jeans And A Sweater, Arms Crossed In Front Of Her, Shivering, Wandering Through The Streets At Night, All Night, Murmuring To No One, Nothing, Tumbling Through The Strange Unreal Dimensions In Her Head.

I Began To Measure Things In Absence Instead Of Presence.

...someone Speaks In Soft Tones To Me And Says I Am Psychotic, But It's Going To Be All Right. I Put On My Hat, Unperturbed, And Ask For Some Crayons.

I Had A Love Affair With Books, With Characters And Their Words. Books Kept Me Company. When The Voices Of The Book Faded, As With The Last Long Chord Of A Record, The Back Cover Crinkling Closed, I Could Swear I Heard A Door Click Shut.

You Can't Teach An Ear, You Can't Teach Talent, But You Can Teach People Who Have Those Things Not To Just Fly By The Seat Of Their Pants.

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For Me, The First Sign Of Oncoming Madness Is That I'm Unable To Write.

Somewhere In The Back Of My Brain There Exists This Certainty: The Body Is No More Than A Costume, And Can Be Changed At Will. That The Changing Of Bodies, Like Costumes, Would Make Me Into A Different Character, A Character Who Might, Finally, Be Alright.

Madness Will Push You Anywhere It Wants. It Never Tells You Where You're Going, Or Why. It Tells You It Doesn't Matter. It Persuades You. It Dangles Something Sparkly Before You, Shimmering Like That Water Patch On The Road Up Ahead. You Will Drive Until You Find It, The Treasure, The Thing You Most Desire. You Will Never Find It. Madness May Mock You So Long You Will Die Of The Search. Or It Will Tire Of You, Turn Its Back, Oblivious As You Go Flying. The Car Is Beside You, Smoking, Belly-up, Still Spinning Its Wheels.

My God! People Say. You Have So Much Self-control! And Later: My God. You're So, So Sick. When People Say This, They Turn Their Heads, You've Won Your Little Game. You Have Proven Your Thesis That No-body-loves-me-every-body-hates-me, Guess-i'll-just-eat-worms. You Get To Sink Back Into Your Hospital Bed, Shrieking With Righteous Indignation. See? You Get To Say. I Knew You'd Give Up On Me. I Knew You'd Leave.

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