I Rely on My Incomprehension is inspired by Clarice Lispector’s Crônicas, a weekly column she wrote for the Jornal do Brasil between 1967 and 1973. On April 17, 1971, Lispector wrote, “I rely on my incomprehension, which has given me an instinctive and intuitive life, whereas so-called comprehension is so limited.”
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Friendship, Lately
Childlike, the sky spills out lilac and cobalt, softening the corners of the world. The moon, winking, appears between two buildings. Tonight, the gingko leaves are blue. Up in B’s room, we are just kids. We talk about sex and queerness, and what it is we want from our bodies, and what sorts of stories we wish we could tell at parties. L asks me, sincerely, What do you trust most in the world? I answer, Breath itself. Then I change my mind. We bring books from our rooms to corroborate all we’ve made up. I make a sweeping claim just to feel it on my tongue, like crashing through the forest and letting the thick green vines scratch at my arms. When J disagrees with me, our arguments crescendo, but we don’t really mean it. We are willfully green, unafraid of change, or of forgetting, or of the sky whose light fades faster and faster now. All we’ve made up spills out behind us, leaving a sticky trail. Recklessly creating and re-creating ourselves, and sometimes burning our lips against the speed of our talk. Meanwhile, the night wanders on. Retracing my path, I find that the wind has changed direction. What I just said does not tell you what I will say. We sit on the bench and B rests on the carpet, and we wrestle in the dark woods against answers to questions we hardly know how to ask. And sometimes we lay down against the cool dirt and laugh and laugh and laugh.
