1

“All of this is illusion. Words aren’t real, words are only themselves of illusion. There is no future in the utterance of mere words. Ideas expressed with words appear like the mirror that can no longer reflect the world. God is the only word that comes close to apprehension. They say that to be your own God is the only way to live, but not even Man is worthy of the title of God.”

2

It has been sixteen months since I last stepped outside. I do not know what I miss the most - I do not know if I have the capacity to miss anything. When everything has been taken away from your reach, there is at first, a moment of intense relaxation. I had not expected this, but then of course it was something that could not last. I became panicked - I don’t believe I had ever experienced panic before. My thoughts raced through encounters. I recollected my sins. I had an overwhelming desire to show myself to the nurses, a complete shaming desire. I would redden in their presence. I could not control my urges. My medication was altered. I had consultation after consultation with men. Always men. I did not see a woman for nearly two months. I complained that it was a basic human right for a man to see a woman, but my complaints disappeared. My medication makes me sleepy. I no longer have desires. They allow me one book a week. I cannot read a single word. Words do not contain meanings for me. I have asked for help - for days I have asked for help. I try to skip my mealtime medication. They now inject me once every three months. I am no longer of a stable mind, but they tell me that my medication is to keep me of a stable mind. I can tell you when it is Thursday, every Thursday.

3

Last week, one of the patients passed away.

4

A male nurse helps to wash my body. They do not allow me to be washed by female nurses. I think the male nurse is homosexual, but I cannot tell. He does not try to touch me, but I have oftentimes caught him looking at me in disgust. I have urges when I see the male nurse, but I think they are a repressed hatred of all mankind or some kind of homophobia that I am unaware of. I no longer have my freedom. I can see the true condition: Futility. Boredom. It is better to repent your sins whilst you still have your freedom. I can only read picture books now. I have a book on St. Anthony that I renew once a week. Nobody else wants to look at pictures of St. Anthony. Everybody else wants to read The Catcher in the Rye, or The Bell Jar, but these books only contain words and nothing else. The only book of words worth reading is the Bible itself.

5

I have to be supervised when I am writing letters. I have nobody to write letters to, but I have complained that it is a basic human right to be able to write a letter, even if that letter is to remain unposted. This does not explain why I have to be supervised when I write letters - I drew pictures of St. Anthony upon the walls in biro when I was supposed to be writing my first letter. My medication was altered and now my hands feel lifeless. Sometimes a male nurse has to feed me. I have dreams of choking to death upon a cupful of semen, but I do not tell anybody this. I wake up coughing and trembling. I think I have a complex, but I no longer recall what the word means. Or its relevance. Everything has become sliced, and I am living out my existence one slice at a time and I hope it kills me.

After invention came the farce of the grand reinvention. Coffee everywhere. I gave up on your promises of lifestyles. (One had collapsed on top of the other.) I passed out staring at an empty cup, as though you’d ground an eraser so hard against my bare cheeks that I’d found holes wide enough for my fingertips and tongue. We saw Francis Bacon in teaspoons.

Your promise of a Godless future was a soft hand and a push towards despair. Not even my therapist has dared engage me on the subject of God since. In my twentieth year I became a follower of the Tolstoyan Jesus, to what end? A relapse? Let us get one thing straight - I barely recognise what it is I’ve become. I barely recognise my days.

I’m fully aware that my writing is no excuse for my fondness for fondling schoolgirls. It was never exactly their tears that I enjoyed wiping from their faces - but I still wiped their faces all the same. Call me whatever, my only crime was attempting to fill a void in their lives. I’m someone they can be proud of when they’re carrying a child.

Oh, and what Hell had you offered me in place of God! An image of future perfection? It was all too simple - there was never any image to perfect. The mirror couldn’t handle your reflection of nothingness. Don’t offer me a lifestyle that can’t be attained. I’ve given up. You might have chopped off my fingers at birth as sliced through my umbilical cord. I don’t want knowledge, I want the freedom to create. The freedom to rise above your jealousies. I’m someone to be proud of.