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HOMAGES TO LEROI JONES
Excerpt from Diary

 

blanket slowly disappears. To my right, partly on blanket partly oV blanket, I
see paper. (3) Same except black shape on blanket doesn’t43

Section from DIARY
1-2/71 (app.)

love T BT 44

haven’t been able to write for the past many weeks because I’ve been going crazy gradual and insidious loss of memory           this was trying and stopped unsuccessfully to restore last night though before knowing I’d do anything to maintain at least one source of love the candle scrapings on the wood in our livingroom I’d done it almost given up myself I was no longer able to          the cats swarm around me       remember within the second my feeling my reaction when Lenny fucked Susanna hid from me even though he was telling me that he was going through a conversion, had not loved me but would be able to love me        when talking to Jerry and Diane the past week I noticed I forgot names was unable to come unable to decide whether I was not with Lenny etc. etc. I finally felt myself rapidly shutting into a small space not able to leave I knew that was the disaster             talked to myself for days aloud so that I wouldn’t forget from minute to minute the train of my thought went slowly repeating each phrase three or four times so that I mustn’t lose track                    tonight told Lenny to go to Charlie’s party after a series of bad cramps preferring the quiet wanting to speak only non-theoretically it probably wouldn’t be possible I repeated each phrase finally getting to the area the beginning of the area? I had closed oV for months pretending I wanted to sleep with lots of people I was a lesbian I thought Lenny should                      today in the afternoon I think of how I consistently in the presence of other people think that I want them to love me so that they’ll notice me so impose upon them I shouldn’t do this therefore I carefully milkwash myself between the inside and the outside I try to be bland not to be crazy watch I don’t show I need other people I practically killed myself doing this I hung on to this area once hitting it squarely I was bale to feel cry I showed Lenny I hated him for hours living with me trying to live with someone else denying me love unless I got rid of myself I spat at him scared at him drooled         I saw out of my own eyes I prefer to live alone each second beyond open even today the Lizard comes back chortling leaves          I notice



43 Excerpt from DIARY II abruptly ends.
44 Written on the typescript in Acker’s hand.

 

 

 

 

myself forgetting each time have to follow it back careful not to let it go Lenny leaves good I spend two hours masturbating but books no longer excite me only licking my own nipple. the way Paul falls asleep I promise myself to act as I feel like the fuck with who I’m with                        for the last 6 months at times scared I’m dying won’t mention it fuck others today I have cramps again probably should see the doctor but so little money lately I prefer to amuse myself when it ha ha magically appears the goddamn sex show the boss actually the sub-boss Bob growing more evil Kali tells me that as she was dancing then pretending to use a dildo Bob was in the back saying come on come on more get that cunt up there come on get it into it sweating trembling Josie said Bob told her to cut out the talking and get on with the fuck Bob tells me when I call him about the dancing job he’s got a new sign out front baby pink I kiss Lizard “Live Sex” it’s the only show in New York that has it that should get them in            they now time our show god forbid we stop a minute earlier          signs all over the projection room saying that Bob is pissed oV blah blah          talking to others in the show two days ago helps a group of freaks instead of isolated freaks we can all go to heaven together          one of the guys is gay which also helps
they (Bob and the other shit horrors) start a 12:30 show don’t want to pay extra we’re expected to work a 14 hour day no union for angels the projectionists get $2.50 an hour as opposed to the union rate for dirty movies $8. per hours and there’s the damn depression          whatever’s literally true the reality I have to show my cunt I have to stay alive I could get too crazy to know when to kill myself the bosses decide they’re not making enough profit so the extra shows Kali’s sex so on I think now that I sold out to work in the show it might have been better to get a shitty 8-hour-a-day robot specialty who knows I’d probably still do the same since money ahs the same fucking attraction given this society I don’t know how else to keep myself going for all that Lenny and I have said in the last three days the future the imagination I don’t know if we’ll stick two new people now unwilling to kill each other the prime requirement for love here we’ve lost track of everything we face the blank page and have no life to put down no one knows why we write because for centuries we’ve been lost a maze of academic shits all words but those concerning money no longer have value what tracks we have to find repeat follow back into the Old days these angels descend my ears these hearts of our sex

practiced at denying all of experience but the constant rent bill gas bill phone bill amusement source of color light quick change more pot to forget we’ve forgotten the ancient person hermaphrodite homosexual the cats bite each other on the balls eyes my hand goes between their legs Lenny comes in and asks if

 

 

Contributor

Kathy Acker

KATHY ACKER (April 18, 1947 - November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist, postmodernist, and sex-positive feminist writer.

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The Brooklyn Rail

APR 2016

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