Empty Reflections

What really matters? Sitting here monotonously chewing gum, looking past an empty reflection of myself in the monitor. Is it the words that I write, or the smile that they bring? I turn on TV, and see images of horror paraded like a carnival for the waiting public, and it doesn’t matter how much they denounce it, it doesn’t matter how many times they tell me it’s a terrible thing- the expressions are permanently etched in my mind. I need a space to think, away from the microscopic analysis of docu-drama news, away from my own thoughts, and away from this world of self alienating destruction. [stop] and then I heard a voice. Low and distant at first, but the exquisite notes reached me somehow, somewhere, and I knew there and then that I was not alone.

(April 2004)