pain too

human beings are born, grow up, and die. i read this sentence in an elementary school science book. or maybe in middle school. both now feel very distant from me. but it does not matter. because i am reading this sentence again now. its meaning is changing in my mind. it seems wrong to me somehow, and perhaps a little incomplete. no, i say to myself. perhaps it should be otherwise. why? because every living being, just as it will surely taste death, will taste pain too.

i am growing, yes, and memories are blending into one another. who was who, who was angry with me. what had i achieved, where had i made what mistake. on that cool spring morning, which ferry had i boarded to see that girl on her terrace? was she blonde, or dark-haired? or whose face was it? who was she? perhaps she was not real; the real was not real. but i remember it, as if. i had arrived just in time at the last minute. with me was a white bicycle that came everywhere with me, letting itself go downhill, never afraid of this. but i was afraid: of falling, of the shrill, deafening sound when the brakes failed, of a downpour suddenly breaking loose while i was in the middle of the slope. most of all, i feared that you would turn around, open your eyes a little, and see me there. and that you would look at me, and i would turn away, and immediately change the song i was listening to, my hands and feet would tangle, a song reminding me of you would come on, and i would not be able to pass. i would not be able to commit that rudeness, and i would not. i am also afraid that i will understand songs in languages i do not understand, and then no longer love them. i am very afraid of that. very afraid. afraid.

what if i die right now, right now. what then? all that expectation. what i expect of myself, what they expect of me. from me. my. me. what if i die, me? i remember again the sentence i grew tired of repeating to myself. i repeat it to myself again and again and again. the issue is not dying, no, but dying before fulfilling our ideals! i must not die now. not yet. i must be careful, but dancing on this mainspring is not easy. as i said, everything comes with pain, with pain.

i came face to face with myself. with my lies, my disgusting expressions, my artificial gestures. i saw all those shameful behaviors i had not stopped myself from performing in the deepest place of my eye. i was going to rip out that eye and throw it to the ground. i would crush it with the dirtiest part of my heel. everything was blurring; i could no longer recognize anything. i was becoming “that” now. once, you too had become “that”. i knew everyone would one day become “that”. but it felt too soon for me to become “that”. i was begging for everything to stop, begging for the ground to become clear again so i could see the patterns on it, all the distortions, the dust gathered between the stones, the hairs on the walls, all those flakes of dead skin flying through the air and finding a home at the bottom of my lungs, all the illnesses that would wake me again in fever one night. then the doors open, a disgusting robotic woman’s voice says something—am i on the phone? who am i talking to? hello? hello! no, i am in an elevator, and a wet, fat, disgusting man with a pale face and a face souring from souring from souring, and with his sorrow and the dead arms of his dead body, pushes me out, throws himself out, and i stumble. i think i fell to the floor. because i feel the tiles, and the cancerous grout between the two tiles. i feel the ground. but the ground should not be like this. tiles are hard, i know that. because how many times did i fall onto them at school. and i did not die. i laugh to myself, this is an achievement. because i had jumped from the eleventh step. i laugh. i understand, i understand, this is not the place i thought it was. i am lying on a carpet. like a fetus. i imagine a cinema camera filming me from above—look at these horrible things i am doing. so bad, maybe worse than even the worst actors. i feel sick. all right, let this trickery end! what trickery? where did that word even come from! yes, i am on the carpet, i know this carpet. yes, i am behind closed doors again. everyone outside is lying to one another. just five meters away from me, seen from above, so many lies are being told. i cannot hear. i hear. i cannot hear. i hear.

wars were won and wars were lost. two horses ate each other. you became “that”. you died. how did i see you after you had died? you were singing on the sidewalk across from me, and i was singing the very same song you were singing. but you were the one who turned away your eyes. you died again. i died. we died. you killed me. you. that. no, the sentence begins again, echoing by itself as if inside the very center of my head. human beings are born, grow up, and die. it should not be like that. i had said it should not be like that. this time i am sure of myself, i know best! it should be like this: human beings are born in pain, grow up in pain, and die from pain!