The Stream of Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

to things so I won't go beyond myself. I have a certain fear of myself, I'm not to be trusted and I distrust my false power.
    This is the word of someone who cannot.
    I don't control anything. Not even my own words. But it isn't sad: it's humble happiness. I, who live to the side, I'm to the left of whoever comes in. And within me trembles the world.
    Does my language seem promiscuous to you? I would like it not to be, I'm not promiscuous. But I am kaleidoscopic: my sparkling mutations, which here I kaleidoscopically register, fascinate me.
    I'm going to stop for a while now so I can delve deeper into myself. I shall return later.
    I'm back. I was existing. I received a letter from Säo Paulo from someone I don't know. A suicide note. I called Säo Paulo. There was no answer . . . the phone rang and rang and rang as in a silent apartment. Did he die or didn't he? This morning I called again: still no answer. Yes, he died. I'll never forget it.
    I'm not frightened any more. Let me speak, all right? I was born like this: tearing from my mother's uterus a life that always was eternal. Wait for me, will you? At the moment of painting or writing I'm anonymous. My deep anonymity, that no one has ever touched.
    I have something important to tell you. I'm not joking: it is pure element. It's the material of an instant of time. I'm not objectifying anything: I'm in true birth-labor with the it. I feel dizzy like someone who's going to be born.
    To be born: I've seen a cat giving birth. The kitten comes out enclosed in a water sac and all shriveled inside. The mother licks the water sac so many times that it finally breaks and then, behold, an almost-free cat, held only by the umbilical cord. Then the cat-mother-creator breaks the cord with her teeth and one more fact appears in the world. This process is it. I'm not joking. I'm serious. Because I'm free. I'm so simple.
    I'm giving you freedom. First, I break the water sac. Then, I cut the umbilical cord. And you are alive, on your own.
    And when I'm born I'm free. That's the root of my tragedy.
    No. It isn't easy. But it is. I ate my own placenta so I wouldn't have to eat for four days. To have milk to give you. The milk is a this. And no one is me. No one is you. This is solitude.
    I'm waiting for the next sentence. It's a matter of seconds. Speaking of seconds, I ask if you can stand it that time is today and now and this very instant. I can stand it because I ate my own placenta.
    At 3:30 this morning I woke up and, immediately elastic, I jumped out of bed. I came to write you. That is: to be. Now it's 5:30 in the morning. I don't feel like doing anything: I'm pure. I don't wish this solitude on you. But I myself am in the creative darkness. Lucid darkness, luminous foolishness.
    There are many things I can't tell you. I'm not going to be autobiographical. I want to be "bio."
    I write as the words flow.
    Before the mirror was invented, people did not know their own faces except when they were reflected in the waters of a lake. After a certain time everyone's responsible for the face he or she has. I'm going to look at mine right now. It's a naked face. And when I think that there's no equal to mine in the world, I'm happily frightened. Nor will there ever be. Never is the impossible. I like never. I also like always. What is there between never and always that links them so indirectly and so intimately?
    At the root of everything there's the hallelujah.
    This instant is. You who read me are.
    It's hard for me to believe that I will die. Because I'm bubbling in a frigid freshness. My life is going to be very long because each instant is. The impression is that I'm still to be born and I can't quite manage it.
    I'm a heart beating in the world.
    You who read me, help me to be born.
    Wait: it's getting dark. Darker.
    And darker.
    The instant is total darkness.
    It continues on.
    Wait: I'm beginning to get a glimpse of something. A luminescent form. A milky belly with a navel?