BRAINSTORM
Reading edition
How absurd people are! As if anyone could ever understand anyone else! I am so tired of people always trying to understand me, when I hold no understanding of myself. Tonight I have no faith and in my brain there are chaos and whirlwinds. I have ceased to believe in God or man. Do you remember when I used to talk to you of ideals and truth and all such false things? That was when I was quite mad, but tonight I am sane; sane and weary of all control and pretenses. I am tired of being polite, of talking low when I wish to shout, of laughing when I want to cry. I am tired of convention and going to dinners and saying “What a charming party this is” when all the while I should like to tear the table-cloth off and smash up the best china. I am tired of shuffling feet, ever struggling onward and leading nowhere. I am tired of weak vacillating people and those who do not know real love—Love is no love at all where for its sake one is not willing to commit a crime. But I am also tired of loving and of being loved—it seems to be the dark ages since I spoke to you of love—I am tired of lies and truth— more tired of truth since it only raises hopes and in the end fails. How futile all these things are, how misguiding and tragically frail! If Life only had long hair so that I might run my hand through it and tear it from its roots! If I could only be an earthquake and shake the very civilization of life! Civilization, what a farce! As if there existed any such thing. I wish I could be a hurricane and crush down everything in my way, or a maddening thunderstorm, with its flashes of blood and fire across the sky.... A thousand dead bodies tonight might lie in my way and I should like to walk over them and, I wish that Life itself were a strip of gauze so that I might tear it asunder and throw it to the winds! Chaotic wild thoughts are running through my brain, but mostly darkness and a mad desire to end it all. I am so very tired of Life, but most of all I am tired of myself. Oh, My God, let me break these chains.... I am so very tired of myself!