I’m well into my twenty-first year of silence. I opened my mouth yesterday, to try to speak again, but nothing happened. There was no sound. Just breath. Breath and breath and breath and breath and breath and breath and breath. Will it ever stop? I don’t know. Probably not. That’s all it is: the respiratory cycle. I need oxygen to function, so I open my mouth and inhale. Sometimes words come out on the exhale, but I don’t speak. Every day just withers by in silence, and I’m sitting there, mouth open, completely mute. Take a drag of a cigarette and breathe out the smoke. Eat too much food and throw it up.

I keep walking down the street, looking at people as they pass me by, waiting for a sound to come out of them, but they’re silent too, and I wonder if it’s just going to keep going on, it has to keep going on, we keep listening and hoping and opening our mouths thinking someone will speak, but no one does, no one ever will, possibly no one has. Things just keep dragging like that draw from the cigarette that you couldn’t let go and don’t you know what that does to your lungs but of course you know what that does to your lungs because people won’t ****ing stop telling you but they never actually speak so you just sit there wondering why you’re listening and you can’t stand it any more. And you drag and drag and drag and drag until nothing’s left and of course you have to be silent because the only thing anyone would pay attention to that came out of your mouth was a ****ing carcinogen and now you’re hooked up to a machine that keeps your processes going. Now I’ve gotten wordy. Things always end up getting wordy.

Talk and jabber and blabber and blather and no one listens but sometimes you wonder if anyone should. The rain’s falling again. It’s broken up into particles when it’s in the air. Doesn’t make any sense. Shattered remnants of rainclouds drizzle outside and tap on the window, descending in droplets and nonsensical pieces, but when they hit the earth they puddle and congeal. Ground becomes wet, dirt becomes mud—we all get new names in the rain. That’s why I carry an umbrella. Something romantic about standing outside in a thunderstorm, so long as you don’t get wet. God forbid you get your clothes wet. Is there anything worse? Jesus, I doubt it.

Clothes. I almost wasn’t silent. I almost spoke, or at least I thought I did, when I had my nice hat on. I put on my nice hat and said to myself “today I’m going to speak,” and I opened my mouth and I sang, but no one could hear it. Maybe no one wanted to hear it, or maybe they heard it, but it wasn’t good enough for them to listen. Regardless, I sang. That was close. So close. Maybe I just tried to sing. Maybe it was just ****ing ****ty, but I did it.

I wonder what it’s like, speaking, but I don’t know because I’ve never done it. No one really knows because no one’s ever really done it. I went to the Laundromat yesterday. I kept putting quarters into the machine until I had put in eight quarters. Eight ****ing quarters, can you believe that? And then I had to load my clothes. I always load my clothes and then they spin and spin and spin and spin and spin and spin and spin and spin and they never stop spinning because if they stopped spinning they wouldn’t be clean, and if they weren’t clean I’d have to wash them again, and that’s eight more quarters in the machine and press cycle and warm wash and please insert detergent. I keep coming here and it’s always my clothes. Sometimes I have new clothes, but other times I just wash the same clothes I washed the time before and before. I barely even remember before, but I have the clothes to prove there was one. They’re the clothes we wore before the new clothes, which are the clothes we wear before our next set of new clothes. We have to keep them clean, because if we don’t and they have stains on them then they won’t be what they were. And then in the midst of the cycle he starts speaking about himself or at least pretends to, but really he needs someone to talk for him:

It’s dark where I live, and no one ever speaks to me. They talk about me and with me, but they never actually talk to me. Sometimes I wonder if they know I’m here or if they just take me for granted and then I’m just sitting in the washing machine and spinning and spinning and spinning but I don’t always call it spinning but then again I don’t call things anything but what they make me call them.

Enough out of you. I had a teacher once. His name was James, but he was better than me. Then I met Samuel and learned a little from him, but he was better than me, too, and neither of them really spoke. No one can ever really speak; just form different combinations. They came close, though, especially Samuel. They sang and they sang on key. I don’t think I ever sang on key. They sang about beautiful things like washing machines and clothes and cigarette drags and respiratory cycles and things I try to sing about but can’t because that song has already been sung and the tune has changed since they sang about it. The tune always changes. It was E Minor then, but it’s G Major now. How’s that for weird? The notes haven’t changed a bit, really, but somehow the tune is different. They keep giving me the tune and the notes, even though I don’t know who “they” are. Where the **** are you? Why are you hiding from me?! But they never listen to me or answer me, because no one can answer me because no one speaks and there is no “they.”

I’m still silent and I think I’ll always be silent and humming in G Major unless the tune changes again. It’ll probably be A Dorian if it does. Yeah, A Dorian and the notes still won’t change but the tune will be different again and I’ll wonder if the notes will ever change or if that F sharp will still be there forever and ever amen, but that’s the Lord’s prayer and those are His words and I can’t take them and blaspheme because if you blaspheme then you’ll go to hell but goats go to hell and sheep go to heaven and I’m tired of being a sheep and bleating instead of speaking but goats bleat, too. It’s the same basic religion, and either way you’re ****ed.

Heaven or hell? What’s the difference, at least it’s an end to the octave with one sharp and maybe it’s a new mode but it’s still the octave and eight quarters for the wash and then the machine is rumbling again but you’re not listening to it because you’re writing another overlong sentence and you’re reading it aloud to yourself because you wonder if you’re speaking yet but you’re not speaking because no one ever speaks because we don’t give ourselves that option and instead we can only bleat and sing because we don’t know the words but we know the tune and even when we do know the words we didn’t pick them because nobody can pick the words and then you’re lying on the bathroom floor and blood is leaking out your eyes and mouth and you’re wondering where all the time went and what the weather will be like where you end up bleating and Saussure is being a little bitch again and he’s the one who convinced me that you could call Heaven and Hell “Heaven and Hell” in the first place and of course he was wrong but you still have to call them “Heaven and Hell” because that’s what everyone else does. I think I’ll close my bleeding eyes and get some rest. I’m tired from not speaking.