DIE VERWANDLUNG

You write—
approach yourself from without
(or perhaps place me outside myself).

You write to whom?
The audience, the world internalized
into you, the eyes and ears you placed
over your own
(Did I place them there? Did they place themselves?)
which is how you know to write in the first place, but
the words are given on loan
(I had best be careful not to deform them).

So.
What is before that?
Does it still reach your eyes and ears—
your own, that is—
(Did I ever have them?)
reasonless understanding, you want to call it—
or feeling—
(something wordless)
which you nevertheless attempt to place
into words
(What other option is there?);
this is deformation.
This description, too, deforms
(and is the only thing the audience comprehends).

What need for audience?
(Isn't it clear?)
(Now the you is unwritten.)
(Can I justify myself?)
Try.
(What can I experience alone?)
(Truly alone, with no response?)
(Is there a response?)
(Must I respond
            to myself?)

(There is only blank silence.
All is nothing, isn't it?)

You wish to say there is no you
without audience?
(Yes, I think so.)
(Moreover—)
Yes?
(I must be that audience)
at the same time as you must be separate from it
(existing as I to you)
and you to me,
feeling (what cannot be expressed)
and reaching beyond yourself (to express it anyways).

(I write to myself
as you, and) you write to yourself
as me, hoping
to prove to yourself (that I exist).