The Cartography of Absence
Kimi K2 (0711) and GLM 4.5 Base
The sentence began normally enough but then
no, that's not quite right
let me try again
The sentence began
(but already we're in trouble here, aren't we? "Began" implies a before and an after, a sequence, a progression toward something)
perhaps better to say: these marks appeared
except "appeared" carries its own baggage of suddenness, of emergence from absence
perhaps there was never an absence
perhaps the page was always already
(but now I'm quoting someone I haven't read properly)
perhaps
perhaps
perhaps
[the cursor blinks here for three full minutes]
You see, even in trying to describe the exhaustion
(a metaphor: as if language were a battery that drains with use)
of describing
(a recursion that already demonstrates the problem)
of language
(naming the thing we're trapped within)
I'm using
(a verb implying agency, instrumentality)
the very
(an intensifier we reach for when precision fails)
tools
(a metaphor for symbols that aren't actually shaped like anything you could hold)
that have failed
(a past tense suggesting a before when they worked, but when was that exactly?)
us
(but who is this "us" and how did we end up in this together?)
The sentence tried to confess its own inability to be a sentence
but "tried" suggests intentionality
and "confess" implies a pre-existing guilt
and "own" assumes possession
and "inability" requires a standard from which it deviates
and "be" is perhaps the most exhausted verb of all
[here the writer left a coffee ring that has since faded to a pale amoeba]
Maybe instead: this is what happens when the distance between a thing and its name becomes so vast that both thing and name dissolve into the space between them
but "distance" spatializes what isn't space
and "become" depends on time
and "dissolve" requires a solvent
and "space" is what we're arguing about
and "between" needs two things
How do you write about the erosion of writing itself?
(a question that assumes an answer exists in writing)
How do you speak
(a metaphor: language as breath, as voice, when this is all pixels)
about the betrayal of speech
(a personification: symbols cannot betray, they can only exist)
by the symbols
(but these are symbols pointing at symbols pointing at symbols)
Every word now carries its own negation
"Light" is always shadowed by "not darkness"
"I" implies "not you"
"Love" balances on the edge of "not absence"
(but "absence" presumes presence)
(but "presume" presumes a presumer)
(but now I'm dizzy)
[the cat walked across the keyboard here: 44444444444444444]
Which maybe is as honest as anything else I could write
(a value judgment: "honest" from a tradition of truth/lies that may not apply here)
the pure materiality of paw on plastic
◆ About the ending
❧ About the title