Insubstantial

  I like to act brave but at times I feel my knees give way out of me and the trembling continues, the erratic heart-beat is thudding in my head, I feel like I am vibrating. It does hurt in spite of everything - not the way a lie, it's like a fear I caught with my teeth without realising what it is and now it's lodged there and I am not the one who's caught it, but the other way around.

  The headaches are not so much worse, these past few days I've found that a combination of alcohol - not too much, just enough to feel tipsy - and cigarettes helps combat the subdued panic I've been feeling for months and that is good, the realisation came just in time. Otherwise I know not how I would deal with this, how can I be so calm about it.

  I am not scared of the knowledge of not being unique myself. What scares me the most is the possibility of the unperceived absence where presence was expected, of the most solid moments collapsing in of themselves, void of everything, like photographs with gaping holes in them where a whole person or a face used to be. 

  I am paralised by the potentiality of this. How there is no way of absolutely refusing any chance of it, that after all moments when I felt most untroubled were nothing but a comedy played for no one but myself. A pointless play, unnecessary as it is now painful. 

  I don't feel hurt, not in the way I expected to be. I just need to see some things as solid and I will breathe out again, if all is as insubstantial as I feel myself to be, there is nothing to hold on to but the only chance is to let go completely, to chase all shadows in the hope you'll manage to grab one that is real.