Whey

I have studied the science of separations

From nocturnal laments when hair flows loose

— Mandelshtam

Something can happen that leaves the soul separated from itself, like whey from milk. I don’t know what to call it: the process that makes the soul this way. It has something to do with the way we live…. I’m drinking tea with slightly curdled milk and oregano oil. It’s 1:00a.m.. I’m on Tinder with one hand, while typing on my typewriter — in some bizarre collision of eras. I have no interest in talking to anyone, in intimacy, tonight — but I pursue it anyone, out of addiction, or out of fear of being alone with myself (or both). This is the way real intimacy dies: through mechanized compulsion. I am a bundle of synapses and nerves, controlled from afar — from data warehouses thousands of myself away. I am an internal code, hacked by external codes. A calculator, calculated….

The only real, tangible product of modern society is sexuality — an explosion of easy sex. I really can’t say if life is better than it’s ever been; all I can really say, for certain about it, is that there’s more information, and more sex. And not like, real fucking — just — a vast, vague, collective, fairly technical and bureaucratic obsession with sex and sexuality….