Nothing Is To Happen Here

'I was waiting – is that the word?', the poet says. 'I waited to get better. But my waiting got lost on the way to its object. Ill, what could I conceive of getting better? How was I to conceive of that: recovery, when it was incommensurable with my illness?

'Waiting lost its object. I was no longer waiting for anything. I no longer hoped. There was no one there to hope.

'No longer was it a matter of regretting the time I might have had for something else – of what I had lost by waiting. For that would still presume my having time to accomplish this or that task, or to dream of further projects. But to fall from time, to wait without waiting for anything in particular, meant that time could be neither lost nor gained.

'Stagnancy: time was going nowhere. I was waiting – but for what?

'Time without project. Superflous time, that lacks its sense.

'Sometimes I wanted to wake myself into a sense of urgency. How old am I?, I asked myself. What date is it? I thought to keep a record of the passing of days; a diary. Thought I could write a few lines for each day.

'Futility: this task, like all others, wore away from itself', the poet says. 'This project, like all others, failed before it began. Why would I desire to leave my mark behind? Why should I seek to line up my days?

'Nothing is to happen here, I said to myself in my flat. Nothing is to gather itself into an event'.