Before the body was made
latent, dishonest in its efforts
to be seen, touched, held...
Before the body became
a conspirator, a thief...
In those days,
before the barbarian tongue--
the hungry language--
distorted with tortured meanings,
and told the inadvertent lies
of a limited vocabulary,
I was the understudy
to my emotions, a tremulous mass.
The infantile urgency
of multiplying cells, the elegant
mitosis made of gold
or mercury, the silver skin
in wordless shivers
and soundless sobs.
What does the baby dream of?
There in his cage,
he wakes to a world
of watercolor blurs.
The vague feeling
of uncertainty, or loss,
or mere frustrated desire
will overwhelm him.
He is alone
and must get used to it.
"This journal is not a mere literary diversion. The further I progress, reducing to order what my past life suggests, and the more I persist in the rigor of composition--of the chapters, of the sentences, of the book itself--the more do I feel myself hardening in my will to utilize, for virtuous ends, my former hardships. I feel their power." --Jean Genet
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